Veteran Banker and Group CEO of Ecobank Albert Essien has been awarded the African Banker of the Year prize at the 9th edition of the African Banker Awards.<\/p>\n
He inherited a bank in a precarious position last year, but has managed to steady the ship and bring in some important shareholders to strengthen Ecobank’s capital base.<\/p>\n
Ivorian Tidjane Thiam, the first African CEO of a FTSE100 company and Nigerian Jim Ovia, Chairman of Zenith Bank win in the African Banker Icon and Lifetime Achievement categories, respectively.<\/p>\n
Morocco’s Groupe Banque Populaire triumphs as this year’s African Bank of the Year.<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”QNw6KyNf6kESqMJVJumHOtUxRPNHqjdQ”]In the African Bank of the Year category, Groupe Banque Populaire beat stiff competition from four shortlisted nominees to win the coveted title.<\/p>\n
Groupe Banque Populaire is one of the most important financial services groups in Morocco. It has recently taken a major stake in West African group Banque Atlantique and helped to turn around its performance significantly.<\/p>\n
The incoming CEO of Swiss Bank, Credit Suisse, Tidjane Thiam was honoured with this year’s African Banker Icon award.<\/p>\n
Thiam is one of Africa’s global leaders, the first African head of the top 100 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange, as well as a former Minister of Finance of his country C\u00f4te d’Ivoire.<\/p>\n
Alongside him, the Lifetime Achievement award was presented to the outstanding leader and entrepreneur Jim Ovia, founder and chairman of Zenith Bank, Nigeria, which is one of the country’s best performing banks.<\/p>\n
The ninth edition of the African Banker Awards, hosted by African Banker magazine were held at a prestigious Gala dinner in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire on 27th May, with over 500 dignitaries in attendance.<\/p>\n
Among them were a number of African Ministers of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors, along with the CEOs of some of Africa’s leading Banks and financial institutions.<\/p>\n
Abidjan was host to the African Development Bank annual meetings. It is a historic year for many reasons.<\/p>\n
This is the first annual meeting since the Bank returned to its Headquarters, the year of the AfDB’s 50th anniversary and also the meeting that will see the election of a new Bank President, as Dr Donald Kaberuka finishes his second term.<\/p>\n
This year’s ceremony was hosted by MasterCard International. Speaking at the event, MasterCard’s Division President for Sub-Saharan Africa, Daniel Monehin said: “We believe that the African Banker Awards understands precisely what excellence in banking means – one only has to consider the Award winners and nominees tonight. This is why we are proud to support these Awards, where we recognize and commemorate our banking colleagues who have, in the last year, provided us with outstanding examples of progress towards our shared goal of banking excellence.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Here is the full list of winners:<\/strong><\/p>\n African Bank of the Year<\/p>\n Groupe Banque Populaire<\/p>\n Morocco<\/p>\n <\/p>\n African Banker of the Year<\/strong><\/p>\n Albert Essien, Group CEO Ecobank (ETI)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Lifetime Achievement Award<\/strong><\/p>\n Jim Ovia<\/p>\n Chairman, Zenith Bank<\/p>\n Nigeria<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Finance Minister of the Year<\/strong><\/p>\n Hon. Claver Gatete<\/p>\n Rwanda<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Central Bank Governor of the Year<\/strong><\/p>\n Prof Njuguna Ndung’u<\/p>\n Kenya<\/p>\n <\/p>\n African Banker Icon<\/strong><\/p>\n Tidjane Thiam<\/p>\n Former Finance Minister of Cote d’Ivoire and CEO of Prudential<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Best Bank in North Africa<\/strong><\/p>\n Attijariwafa Bank<\/p>\n Morocco<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Best Bank in West Africa<\/strong><\/p>\n Orabank<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Best Bank in Central Africa<\/strong><\/p>\n Groupe BGFI Bank<\/p>\n Gabon<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Best Bank in East Africa<\/strong><\/p>\n Bank of Kigali<\/p>\n Rwanda<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Best Bank in Southern Africa<\/strong><\/p>\n Banco de Comercio e Investimentos<\/p>\n Mozambique<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Best Retail Bank in Africa<\/strong><\/p>\n Standard Bank<\/p>\n South Africa<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Investment Bank of the Year<\/strong><\/p>\n Rand Merchant Bank<\/p>\n South Africa<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Award for Innovation in Banking<\/strong><\/p>\n Millennium BIM<\/p>\n Mozambique<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Socially Responsible Bank of the Year<\/strong><\/p>\n BMCE Bank<\/p>\n Morocco<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Award for Financial Inclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n Fondation Attawfik<\/p>\n Morocco<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Deal of the Year – Equity<\/strong><\/p>\n Seplat IPO<\/p>\n (Standard Bank)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Deal of the Year – Debt<\/strong><\/p>\n $850m Commercial and ECA Backed Financing Package for the Ethiopian Railways Corporation<\/p>\n (Credit Suisse)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Trade Finance Deal of the Year<\/strong><\/p>\n $1.3bn Petroleum Export Limited Syndicated Pre-export Facility<\/p>\n Commercial International Bank (CIB), Egypt<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Infrastructure Deal of the Year<\/strong><\/p>\n CENPOWER – KPONE IPP<\/p>\n Africa Finance Corporation, Nigeria<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Best Islamic Finance Initiative<\/strong><\/p>\n Senegal Sukuk<\/p>\n Citi and ICD<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Veteran Banker and Group CEO of Ecobank Albert Essien has been awarded the African Banker of the Year prize at the 9th edition of the African Banker Awards. He inherited a bank in a precarious position last year, but has managed to steady the ship and bring in some important shareholders to strengthen Ecobank’s capital […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":120018,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,19],"tags":[38,4],"class_list":["post-120016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-health","tag-palaver-newspaper","tag-st-augustines-college"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=120016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/120018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=120016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=120016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=120016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}