UBA Restates Commitment to Enhancing Intra-Africa Trade

UBA Restates Commitment to Enhancing Intra-Africa Trade

Nume Ekeghe and Hamid Ayodeji

The United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc has restated its commitment to promoting intra-Africa trade through innovation, financial inclusion and technology.

The Group Executive, Transformation and Resources, Chiugo Ndubisi, said this Thursday, at the ‘Africa Special Day,’ at ongoing Lagos International Trade Fair.

Ndubisi said: “As Africa’s global bank, we understand the importance of intra-Africa trade. Therefore, we have put services in place to support this. With Africash, our intra-African money transfer services, customers can easily move money around for trade and investment within the continent.”

“While the multiplicity of currencies in Africa creates a bottleneck when in our quest to make every UBA branch a home branch to our customers, regardless of the African country they come from, we have recorded impressive success in this regard, introducing UBAConnect, a service that has effectively supported trade in the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) region.”

He added: “Today, UBA customers in the CEMAC region made up of Gabon, Cameroon, the Central African Republic (CAR), Chad, the Republic of the Congo and Equatorial Guinea can enjoy instant access to their accounts in the banking halls of our branches anywhere within the region. “These services are in line with our belief that greater access to financial services can contribute to an increase in the productivity of businesses, especially Micro, Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (MSMEs) – engines of economic growth on the continent.”

According to him, “at UBA, we are excited about the possibilities the future holds for intra-African trade, with the required number of countries ratifying the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (AfCFTA).”

On his part, the President, Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mr. Babatunde Ruwase, urged business owners to reform their organisations in order to position themselves to take full advantage of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement

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