FITC, the world-class innovation led, and technology driven knowledge institute launches the maiden edition of the FITC Award for Excellence (FAFE). The Award is designed to celebrate the leaders in the financial services sector.
The Award initiative is aimed at recognizing organizations who have contributed to the development of the Nigerian Financial Services Sector, through innovative products and service offerings, service excellence, employee engagement programmes, regulatory excellence, sustainability, and impact.
The maiden edition of the FAFE Awards is slated to hold on Friday, December 3rd, 2021. There are 15 award categories spanning the Banking sector, Fintech, Insurance, Pension, Regulatory agencies, Other Financial Institutions (OFIs), and the Development banks. The FAFE Awards is designed to recognise organisations’ drive for excellence, thereby promoting investments in innovation, service quality, sustainability, and impact within the Financial Service sector.
As a firm that has consistently delivered on its mandate of building and developing capabilities within organisations in the Financial Service sector, we remain driven by excellence. It is upon this premise of our vision for excellence that we seek to drive the culture of excellence across the industry that we serve, while catalysing unparalleled service delivery level and overall industry performance.
The nomination process is currently open to the financial service industry customers and key players. The final winners selection will be made by a 14-man panel which consists of respected individuals and professionals across diverse sectors which includes, financial services experts, technology enthusiasts, consulting professionals and auditors drawn from various reputable organisations.
The FITC Award for Excellence (FAFE) panel of judges are: Ms. Ashley Immanuel, CEO EFINA; Mr. Obi Asika, MD/CEO Dragon Africa; Mrs. Nkem Begho, MD/CEO Futuresoft; Dr. Ayotunde Coker, MD/CEO Rack Centre; Mr. Olufemi Awoyemi, CEO, Proshare; Iyinoluwa Aboyeji – Founder, Future Africa; Mr. Uzoma Dozie, MD/CEO Sparkle; Mr. Ugo Obi-Chukwu, Founder, Nairametrics, and Mr. Adewale Yusuf, Founder, Techpoint Africa, among other notable panelists.
As an organization driven by innovation and technology, the FITC Award for Excellence (FAFE) will be deployed using the best of technology while incorporating several parameters into the voting and elimination process. In optimising technology, the FAFE Awards will reflect transparency and integrity of the process. Speaking further on the credibility of the FAFE Awards, Managing Director/CEO FITC, Chizor Malize noted that the organization has gone through great lengths to ensure the award process is extremely transparent and trustworthy. “Two essential elements of awards are the selection of experts qualified to make an assessment and the effective system for judging management. We are all about transparency and professionalism during the voting and judging processes, and we have partnered with renowned professionals and institutions to assure our process. As the maiden edition, it was important for us at FITC to ensure that stakeholders find the entire process transparent and credible as the success of this edition and subsequent editions will depend heavily on their trust and confidence in the award” Malize said.
It would be recalled that the premier knowledge institute in celebrating its 40th anniversary recently announced the commencement of activities and initiatives aimed at impacting their immediate community, the youth segment, the Financial Service Sector, and other sectors of the economy.
“To celebrate this important milestone, we recently launched the FITC Sustainability Initiative with Slum2School Africa, a volunteer-driven development organization, transforming society by empowering underserved children in slums and remote communities with quality education, entrepreneurial skills, technology, and psychosocial support to enable them to realize their full potential. We have partnered with this transformational organization, to empower children and other beneficiaries leveraging on our institution’s specialty in mentorship, as well as building and developing capacity. We have so far mentored hundreds of children since the partnership took off in August” Malize noted.
Likewise, on the FITC Hackathon Challenge targeted at the youth segment, and which is also set to launch this quarter, Malize noted that as part of the organization’s celebratory activities and in line with their unwavering commitment to continuously promote innovative thinking that could further enhance growth and development in Africa, FITC will be launching the FITC hackathon challenge. “We will be calling on teams, young experts, problem solvers, creative thinkers, specialists in various fields, programmers, graphic and online designers to participate in a 2-week collaborative innovative process, to create tech and non-tech solutions to some of the most pressing needs in Africa’’ Malize stated.
For the grand finale, the organization will host a special anniversary summit which will be followed by a cocktail, awards, and dinner event in December.
FITC was established in 1981 as a limited by guarantee non-profit professional service organisation, based on the Company’s Act of 1968. It was created in response to the recommendations of the Pius Okigbo Committee, which was set up by the Federal Government of Nigeria in 1976 to review the financial service system.
Under the direct supervision of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) and the Nigerian Bankers’ Committee, FITC has since remained committed to the advancement in knowledge content that is creatively designed to reinforce the Nigerian financial system.
The organization has achieved remarkable accomplishments specifically across the organization’s six strategic pillars of product, process, platform, people, performance, and positioning, and in line with the institution’s corporate strategic blueprint and 5-year plan (2020-2024), as well as its new vision to build a world-class, innovation-led and technology driven knowledge organization. To achieve this, FITC created a vision that meant that for the organization to remain relevant and ahead, embracing technology and innovation as well as an agile way of thinking to ensure sustainable business performance, success, and growth in the years to come.
