Nigeria: Parallex Bank emerges challenger Bank of the year

In what looks like a serial award-winning journey, Parallex Bank Limited, the young but fast-rising commercial bank in Nigeria, emerged as the Challenger Bank of the Year 2022 at the Businessday Banks and Other Financial Institutions Awards held in Lagos on Saturday. Parallex Bank won the award over Alat by Wema Bank and Lotus Bank, which were co-nominees in the award category.

It will be recalled that Parallex Bank had won the award for the most innovative Young Commercial Bank in Nigeria at the Marketing Edge Awards and had, in the penultimate week, won the Excellence in Agency Banking Award at the 2022 Finnovex Awards. The BAFI Awards, one of the most prestigious recognition events for outstanding performance in Nigeria’s financial services industry, focus on recognizing and celebrating organizations that have achieved excellence in the delivery of financial services across the entire client and customer spectrum.

The Publisher of Businessday Limited, Mr. Frank Aigbogun, said the BAFI Awards is supported by the BusinessDay Research and Intelligence Unit (BRIU), and nominations for the award are the culmination of a rigorous review process. According to him, Businessday Media Limited has a thorough understanding of the happenings in Nigerian banks and other financial institutions, and based on rigorous assessment, there were nominations and winners were carefully selected.

In his acceptance speech, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Parallex Bank, Mr. Olufemi Bakre, said the award is a further testament that Parallex Bank is on the right path. According to Bakre, Parallex Bank only set out from the beginning to be a bank, with the difference, of offering customers a limitless banking experience and connecting with their customers at the core of their banking needs and pain points.

This, according to him, made the bank not do banking the usual way by offering customers the freedom to choose their NUBAN Account number, offering them free transfers to other banks, and not charging a monthly account maintenance fee on their accounts. He added that the bank went further to offer interest not only on savings accounts but also on current accounts.

Bakre said it is gratifying to note that just by staying true to the company’s core values of professionalism, innovation, excellence, customer centricity, and collaboration, Parallex Bank was adjudged the challenger bank of the year. He said the award was received with every sense of pride and assured Nigerians to expect more from the bank in the coming days.