Herbert Wigwe, the very urbane Chief Executive Officer and Group Managing Director of upscale Access Bank, whenever he has the calendar in front of him would have his gaze fixed on the month of July. And next month when it automatically flips to August, Wigwe is likely to occasionally flip it back to July. There is a reason for this and no one would begrudge him if he chooses to make that exercise his own ‘satisfactory-smile-time’ whenever he is alone thinking of how to drive his bank to greater heights. And here’s why!
This July, in Port Harcourt, Nigeria; and in far away London, the United Kingdom, Wigwe and the Access Bank that he leads received double recognition for personal and corporate achievements. At the University of Port Harcourt, Wigwe was conferred with a Doctor of Science (D Sc) honoris causa degree in recognition of his service and contributions to banking and the Nigerian economy. This recognition coming to an astute accountant and banker who has over twenty years experience in banking did not come as a surprise, especially as head of a bank that has witnessed remarkable transformation over the years and which repositioning and reengineering to a top five in the Nigerian banking landscape he has been a key driver.
The recognition at home by the University of Port Harcourt may seem to some personal to Wigwe, but there is a connection to his work and his place in banking which has been shaped by his contribution to the growth of Access Bank. It is important to note that this recognition has come to this astute banker within 19 months of his taking over as Chief Executive of the bank. And it is also in this 19th month of taking over the management of the bank that Euromoney, the prestigious London based group also chose to reward Access Bank for Excellence with the bank winning the Best Flow House in Africa 2015 award in an event held at the Natural History Museum in London.
There is indeed something like ‘a future foretold’ about this particular recognition which has come to Access Bank under Wigwe’s watch. Last year, just six months after taking over from Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, Wigwe began a conscious effort at delivering on the bank’s international vision contained in a five-year strategic plan. He drove and successfully launched a $400 million Eurobond Tier-2 capital issuance after securing shareholders approval in April of the same year for the bank to raise $1 billion to enhance its operations. There are enough reasons to see why Access Bank under Wigwe would be getting such international recognition. For one thing, there is an understanding and acceptance of what Wigwe and his team see as a deserving place in the international financial market place. This is largely embedded in a shared belief in doing things according to international best practice. He said this much upen the success of the $400 million bond issuance.
“The process that has been followed to achieve this successful bond launch has proved that indeed Access Bank is a business that adheres to the highest possible international standards, having achieved the fund raising under both the US SEC’s Reg S and Rule 144A,” he said at the time. He is happy at the support the bank is receiving from international bond investors, something that says to him there is faith and belief in the bank’s strategy of ethical growth, generally recognized within the bank as sustainable banking, where Access Bank is a leader.
Wigwe is running an Access Bank that is internationally driven, hence it is not particularly surprising this award by Euromoney as Africa’s Best Flow House for 2015. Euromoney in giving the bank Wigwe leads this award, said it did so to honour the bank for demonstrating an ability to excel across the region in the key areas of foreign exchange, equities, rates and credit. In effect it sees Access Bank as having shown commitment to provide liquidity and pricing in all market conditions. Besides, it acknowledges the bank for showing leadership in developing and integrating technology into its sales and trading businesses, as well as the importance of research. There is quite a lot of accomplishments built into this award of Best Flow House. There’s something to do with movement of funds, trans-border financial flows which requires professionalism and banking astuteness.
Wigwe recognizes this as no mean achievement, hence his expression of delight at the presentation of the award in London. “We are delighted to be presented with this highly coveted award. This is recognition of our regional expertise; and our continuing ability to provide customized currency and fixed income solutions to our customers across Africa. This award is an attestation of the Bank’s determination to be the world’s most respected African bank by 2018,” he said.
This ability to provide solutions, Wigwe knows and acknowledges, would be built around technology and all the attendant innovation that comes with it. He drives a bank that is keen on occupying an enviable position in the digital banking space. This is why as a pioneer in Nigeria’s digital banking architecture his bank continues to drive innovation. Its recent addition to this architecture is the multi-banking payment solution known as PAYWITHCAPTURE, a mobile payment solution that permits customers to make payments by scanning a merchant’s pre-generated QR-Code using the camera of the mobile device or via a one-step Beacon-NFC System.
Of this innovation, Wigwe says: “Forging growth in mobile payment solutions requires inclusiveness. For the potential of mobile payment technologies to truly explode, it is important that we begin to see it as more than a bank initiative but more of a consumer initiative and that is where inclusiveness comes in. We are committed to providing solutions that meet people in their niche and we have been working closely with technology partners to achieve this. Nigeria is an exceptional country with unique consumer needs.
“Banking is morphing into something at the intersection of retail and mobile, and inclusiveness is the way to go. To actually achieve innovation in mobile payment, we need a payment solution that recognizes all our financial payment instruments, allows us perform transactions without physical encumbrances and takes cognizance of our unique local challenges like nascent internet infrastructure,” Wigwe noted.
Herbert Wigwe, is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, with a degree in Accountancy from the University of Nigeria. He also holds an MA in Banking and Finance from the University College of North Wales (now Bangor) and an MSc in Financial Economics from the University of London respectively. He is an alumnus of the Harvard Business School Executive Management Programme and attended Advanced Management programmes at IMD Lausanne, Switzerland.
He began his career at Coopers & Lybrand, Lagos as a Management consultant before joining Guaranty Trust Bank (now GT Bank) where he spent over a decade working in the Corporate and Institutional Banking Divisions. Wigwe was one of the pioneer staff who created industry defining products and initiatives in Oil and Gas, Telecommunications and Construction. Aside from the founders of the institution, he was one of the three individuals who rose to become Executive Directors in the institution at that period owing to his exceptional capabilities and ingenuity.
He serves on the Board of several organisations, including being the Chairman of Access Bank (UK) Ltd and Board member, Access Bank (Ghana) Ltd, is acknowledged for his defining role on the Board of Friends Africa, an adjunct of the Global Funds committed to galvanizing African governments, the private sector and civil society for the purpose of bringing about sustainable and effective methods of addressing AIDS, TB and malaria in Africa. He is a sustainability champion with personal commitment to a number of orphanages and motherless babies’ homes. Also, his foundation offers scholarship to indigent students in tertiary institutions across the country and has renovated and adopted schools for the purpose of inclusive education.
PHILLIP ISAKPA
