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By Emmanuel Uffot
In furtherance of its Corporate Service Responsibility, CSR, First Bank of Nigeria Limited has unveil an array of educational based products to support the educational sector in Nigeria. The products according to the premier centurion bank will also benefit parents and guardians as they will offer a platform for them to meet the educational needs of their children.
Among the educational products announced by the bank are FirstEdu Loan, Operational Vehicle Loan, Term Loans for constructing new sites and extension of existing sites, Personal Loan Against Salary and First Advance.
The FirstEdu Loan will offer short-term finance to private pre-primary, primary and secondary schools as well as registered ‘A’ level institutions with steady flow of income for the running of the schools. Similarly, the product will offer opportunity for private schools to access flexible funding to meet their urgent cash flow needs for their operation especially replacing old furniture, purchase of fairly-used school buses, refurbishing of dilapidated buildings, class room blocks and other assets.
The bank said this special products will also help school proprietors to bridge the no income gap between school terms and to enhance diverse assets acquisition. The product will enable schools access up to N20 million with no complicated collaterals required apart from the domiciliation of school fees with the bank. For schools with Corporate Affairs Commission, CAC registration but are yet to get Ministry of Education approval, they will be able to access N2 million without collateral for 90 days.
The Operational Vehicle Loan will provide a platform for schools to access loan to purchase their operational vehicle while under Term Loans, proprietors of schools will access term loans for the construction of new sites and expansion of existing ones.
Another of the new products that will bring smiles to the faces of private schools proprietors is the Personal Loan Against Salary, PLAS. This product will serve as an insurance whereby school owners will access loan for the purpose of paying staff salaries promptly.
Parents and guardians also stand to benefit from the array of First Bank educational products through FirstAdvance. This product will enhance parents and guardians capacity to pay their children’s school fees.
The latest products are falls among the stable of products churn out by the bank in recent years since assumption of duty as the Managing Director/Chief Executive officer of First Bank of Nigeria Limited by Adesola Adeduntan.
It could be recalled that the bank in its drive to improve its services to its customers in line with the vision to promote cashless society had in 2019 introduced Visa Multi-Currency Card. The unique benefit of the card is that it can be linked to either or all customer’s currency like Nairan USD Dollars, EURO and British Pounds. The international card which has a life span of three years also enables the holder to make payment anywhere in the world across all channels like ATM, POS and Web.
The bank has in the past five years carve a niche for itself in the industry through its array of electronic card products to enhance e-banking to its teeming global customers.
In December 2015 and May 2016, First Bank won two awards in the e-Business Category, namely Mastercard Cardless Champion Award for international acceptance across all POS channels and Mastercard Cardless Champion Award for Mobile POS.
Also in 2017 the bank was honoured with the award of Digital Bank of Distinction and Global Finance Best Digital Banks Awards.
In 2019 it won three Interswitch awards in Electronic Payment as the fastest Mobile Penetration Bank across Africa, the Highest Card Transacting Bank and the Highest Issuer of Verve Cards.
According to the CEO Adeduntan, the awards are clear indications of the giant strides taken by the bank towards fostering its banking technologies in the era of e-banking.
