Johannesburg – FNB’s approach to providing helpful and contextual financial solutions to support business customers has been recognised through the accolade of Global SME Bank of The Year at the Global SME Finance Awards Ceremony late in 2020.
Managed by the IFC, the SME Finance Forum was established by the G20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI) in 2012 as a knowledge centre for data, research and best practice in promoting SME finance.
FNB CEO, Jacques Celliers said, “To be recognised as the Global SME Bank in 2020, in addition to the Sunday Times’ Best Business Bank in SA for 7 straight years now, is an enormous achievement and carries humbling responsibilities. It is pleasing to see that our numerous meaningful innovations over the last few years aimed at simplifying our customers’ banking-related experiences are at the forefront of global best practice. I am extremely proud of our team’s efforts to support our Business Banking customers with modern solutions as they navigate the complexities of their industries during these incredibly challenging economic times.”
“As we head into 2021 our customers can look forward to even more support not only with respect to trusted, efficient and secure digital platforms and payment solutions, but also with ever increasing trusted, knowledgeable and experienced teams on the ground in local markets across the various industries our customers operate in. This is because we know that while methods of interaction are important, they are however secondary to the fundamental relationship between our customers and ourselves.”
“Over our proud 182 years we have demonstrated that we are a bank focussed on using and developing the most modern tools to enable both our colleagues and customers. Exciting benefits derived from platform-based efficiencies continue to be reinvested into further enhancements of our value propositions across transact, credit, invest and insure activities. It is very important for us to ensure our customers are safely and conveniently in control of their lives/businesses 24x7x365 through our secure data-driven digital control panel with its fast maturing integrated communication platform.”
“Just as we this year terminated the use of cheques, we hope to soon terminate the use of unsafe communications such as emails, sms, etc,” Celliers further added.
According to Gordon Little, CEO FNB Commercial, the Bank’s specific and unique value propositions across segments continue to result in both more entrenched clients as well as record levels of new account growth. He says the dedicated focus is especially effective in solving for each business’ unique needs such as assisting to transform informal or underbanked businesses, digitising activities for those still reliant on outdated banking methods or finding unique ways of enabling the wider FNB networked ecosystem to support businesses to grow.
“Customers in the SME sector are seeking a range of both financial tools and advisory services. As a result, our world-class transactional, credit, invest and insure capabilities allow us to extend valuable benefits to customers across a range of solutions to enable them to run their day to day affairs. On the advisory side, we provide a range of helpful solutions such as the recently launched marketplace on our digital platforms all the way through to the Fundaba suite where SMEs can get holistic business education from incubation, starting, running and ultimately growing their business. Other support includes free SME thought leadership content such as Business Talk, the Business Toolkit that assists businesses to cope through COVID-19, as well as accounting, invoicing and payroll support,” concludes Little.
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