Access Bank’s women empowerment programme, the ‘W’ Initiative has received the Global Banking Alliance’s (GBA) “Highest Engagement Award” at the 2017 GBA Summit held in London.

The award is in recognition of the Bank’s continuous focus on programmes aimed at creating more opportunities for women to improve their businesses and general wellbeing. In 2015 the GBA adjudged Access Bank a “Women Market Champion” one year after launching the ‘W’ Initiative.

Welcoming the news of the award, the Managing Director of Access Bank, Mr. Dolapo Ogundimu expressed the Bank’s delight for the recognition and indicated the award will further spur the Bank on to achieve its set objectives for the ‘W’ Initiative.

He added, “The acceptance of the ‘W’ Initiative by women across the country has been humbling. Many of these women believe in the potential of the initiative to create an enabling environment for women to thrive, as it is a lever to help women achieve their financial and lifestyle goals.”

Launched in March 2015, the ‘W’ Initiative forms a key component of Access Bank’s financial inclusion drive which makes available to women, specialised bundled products and services to support them in their quest at growing their businesses, improving their family wellbeing and general lifestyle goals.

Since the launch, over 30,000 women have benefited from various workshops across the country through the ‘W’ Knowledge Hub Series. The most recent was a week-long training for Female Business Leaders in collaboration with the Dutch Development Bank, FMO.

The W Initiative also partnered the Makola Institute to train Market Women on Trade Finance, Book Keeping, Stock Management and Customer Service as part of activities to mark Women Entrepreneurship Day on November 19.

The Global Banking Alliance for Women is the leading international consortium of financial institutions and other organizations interested in building women’s wealth worldwide.

GBA member institutions work in 135 countries to build innovative, comprehensive programs that provide women entrepreneurs access to capital, markets, education and training. With the presence of Bankers, policymakers, multilateral and bilateral representatives, academics and other stakeholders, the GBA Summit is one of the most comprehensive events for women’s financial inclusion in the world.

This year’s summit was held under the theme “Catalysing Growth in the Female Economy – Leveraging the Power of Connections”.