The Managing Director, Ecobank Nigeria, Patrick Akinwuntan has called on trainee bankers to imbibe the tenets of professionalism for them to excel in their banking career. Akinwuntan, who was speaking at the inauguration of the Entry Level Development Programme for graduate trainees at the Ecobank Academy in Lagos, enjoined the trainees to make deliberate effort to practice their assigned roles in line with the ethics of the profession. The Ecobank Entry Level Development Programme is an intensive 8-week medley of learning interventions for fresh graduates. It is targeted at equipping the participants who may be coming from non-financial and banking related academic backgrounds. The programme is an addition to the existing Ecobank Graduate and Management Trainee program which runs for 12months and 21 months respectively.

Specifically, the Managing Director took the young trainees through the history, formation and the Pan African status of the Ecobank Group; mission and vision; product, customer focus and digital offerings and several milestones of the Bank, urging them to see themselves as  future leaders of the Bank. He urged them to participate actively in the various training sessions, stressing that the modules have been designed to inculcate in them the values that makes Ecobank one of the preferred financial institutions on the continent. He added that the training will prepare them for the challenges ahead and get them acquainted with essential skills required to compete and excel in the 21st century.

“As a bank, we are confident that our Investment in training programmes, will produce the desired dividends, resulting in improvement in the quality of the bank’s human capital and by extension, customer service and organizational performance. I advise you to be morally upright, shun unethical vices and discharge your duties with utmost integrity. You must be a good ambassador of the bank and the industry in general.”

It would be recalled that the Ecobank Nigeria Academy, a state of the art facility for multiple blended learning interventions, was recently accredited by the Sole Accreditation Agency for the Nigerian Banking Industry; the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN).

This comes after rigorous accreditation processes which included a high powered visit by the Registrar and members of the institute’s accreditation committee as a vote of confidence that Ecobank Nigeria has complied with and satisfied the provisions and requirements of the Competency framework for the Nigerian Banking Industry as mandated by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) through CIBN. The accreditation grants automatic exemptions ranging from 9 – 10 subjects to Ecobank staff at various levels of the Banking Professional Examinations following their participation at the Ecobank Academy.