By Jacinta Ugwuoke.
TAJBank Limited, Nigeria’s leading non-interest bank, has successfully secured the approval for nationwide banking operations from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Hamid Joda, managing director of the bank, who disclosed this in a statement made available to Business A.M., said the licence was coming purposely on the heels of several awards bagged by the bank in its last two years of operations in recognition of its outstanding banking services.
Joda described the CBN approval as another feat achieved by the bank as it continues to leverage on cutting-edge products and service delivery scorecards.
He said the national licence would help the bank grow its agency network to 25,000 by 2025, thereby reducing financial exclusion rate.
“We want to thank the regulatory authorities for issuing a national licence as well as the growing number of our customers who are yearning to see us give them the best in non-interest banking services,” Joda said.
“I want to assure them that with the latest approval by the authorities, we will deploy all human and technological resources to their doorsteps and give real meaning to the National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS),” he said.
Joda said the bank would be bringing world-class non-interest banking products and services to the doorsteps of its customers to enable growth and prosperity.
He attributed TAJBank’s impressive performances over the past two years to innovativeness in key areas of customer-centric service delivery that was powered by world-class technologies and solutions.
Sherif Idi, the bank’s executive director, expressed excitement at the licence for national operation.
“We are very excited to achieve this feat, especially when the potential benefits to our customers and the nation’s economy cannot be quantified in socio-economic terms,” Idi said.
“For us, it is a call for more services to millions of Nigerians, who are desirous of having access to credit without pain. Let me say it loud, we shall not disappoint them on this expectation,” he said.
He recalled that TAJBank’s management had in June 2022 unveiled plans to launch Nigeria’s first private sector Sukuk valued at N100 billion under a Mudarabah structure.
This, he noted, showed a historic shift from government-dominated Sukuk offerings to a fully private sector-oriented offering in the Nigerian debt markets.
