First City Monument Bank (FCMB), has received a double honour for its consistent and outstanding support towards the growth of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria.

The bank got the honourable mentions and certificates in two prestigious award categories – “SME Financier of the Year” and “Best Bank for Women Entrepreneurs” – at the highly competitive Global SME Finance Summit and Awards 2021 organised by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group which took place in the United States of America.

IFC said; “The honourable mention of FCMB in the “SME Financier of the Year” award category is in recognition of its outstanding service to businesses operating in International Development Association (IDA) countries and fragile and conflict-affected situations.”

In the “Best Bank for Women Entrepreneurs” category, FCMB was commended for offering exceptional services, including funding and capacity building, to women-owned businesses.

For those who don’t know, the Global SME Finance Awards is endorsed by G20’s Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI) and the SME Finance Forum was launched in 2018.

It celebrates the outstanding achievements of financial institutions and fintech companies in delivering exceptional products and services to their SME clients that have achieved impressive results.

Chief Executive Officer of the Forum, Mr. Matthew Gamser said;

“Every year we see more and more impressive institutions doing incredible things to help improve SMEs’ access to finance.”

“We see great innovations, we see new opportunities for redressing past imbalances due to gender, age and other inequities, and we see new ways to put the customer first and ensure that financing is responsible and truly beneficial.”

“The 2021 competition brings us more of the same – bigger innovations, bigger achievements, and bigger potential”.