Union Bank Customer Service Week-

 The Person on the Other End of the Line

The 2026 Customer Service Week, tagged"the extra mile" starts with something simpler: making sure that when a customer, caller, or visitor needs a human being, one is there.

On an ordinary day, in any large city, the same moment plays out thousands of times. A woman calls her mobile network because her line has been barred and she cannot reach her children's school. A man rings a hospital switchboard, trying to find out which ward his father has been taken to. 

A small business owner stands at the reception desk of a large company, holding an invoice that has been unpaid for four months. A traveller dials an airline hotline at two in the morning from an airport she does not know.

None of them is calm, and none of them has reason to be. What happens next depends almost entirely on one person: the agent, operator, or receptionist who answers.

 If that person hears the whole problem, takes ownership of it and explains plainly what will happen next, the caller leaves with something more valuable than a resolution. She leaves believing the organisation can be trusted. If not, she leaves with a story she will tell for years.

I have spent a quarter of a century in financial services, much of it building and leading brand and customer experience programmes, contact centres and complaints operations, and working with service leaders across the continent. I have come to believe that this moment is the whole game, in every sector. The person on the other end of the line is not a cost to be managed. For the customer in that moment, she is the organisation.

This week, organisations around the world mark Customer Service Week, and most of us will picture headsets and call queues. But the front line of any organisation is far wider than its contact centre. 

It is the retail hotline and the customer care desk, certainly. It is also the corporate switchboard that decides whether a caller is helped or passed from extension to extension until she gives up; the receptionist who is the first face of a headquarters; the security officer at the gate; the person who answers the general enquiries line of a public agency; the nurse at the admissions desk. 

Many of these people never see the inside of a customer experience strategy. Yet to the people they serve, they are the brand, the culture and the promise, all at once. Any organisation with people answering its phones and its doors is in the customer service business, whether it thinks of itself that way or not.

This year's theme is The Extra Mile, and it is a good one. I would add only that the extra mile begins with the first. Anxious people are not looking for grand gestures. They want to know that they can reach someone when it matters, and that the person they reach is calm, informed and able to help.

Reachability, reliability and a human being who takes ownership: that is the first mile. Any organisation that walks it consistently can go the extra mile and be believed. Any organisation that skips it will find that the grand gesture rings hollow.

None of this is sentiment. The most rigorous research houses in our field have measured it, and their findings point firmly in the same direction.

In PwC's 2025 Customer Experience Survey, 86 per cent of consumers said human interaction is moderately or very important to their experience of a brand, and 52 per cent had stopped using or buying from a brand after a bad experience with its products or services. Gartner, surveying more than 5,700 customers, found that 64 per cent would prefer companies did not use AI in customer service at all, and that their single biggest concern was that AI would make it harder to reach a person. 

Even McKinsey, whose work has done much to chart the rise of AI in customer care, found that 71 per cent of Gen Z respondents, the generation we assume would rather never speak to anyone, see a live call as the quickest and easiest way to reach customer care and explain their issue.

Gartner also offers the clearest view of where this is heading. It predicts that by 2028, not one Fortune 500 company will have fully eliminated human customer service, and that by 2027 half of the organisations that expected to significantly reduce their service workforce because of AI will have dropped those plans.

 The future, in other words, is not agentless. It is a future in which fewer, better-equipped people handle the moments that matter most.

Then there are the economics. Bain & Company's foundational loyalty research, led by Frederick Reichheld, showed that increasing customer retention rates by just 5 per cent can increase profits by between 25 and 95 per cent.

Every caller who hangs up, and every customer who abandons a queue, is a small withdrawal from that account.

Closer to home, KPMG's 2025 West Africa Banking Industry Customer Experience Survey, its nineteenth edition in Nigeria and drawn from more than 35,000 retail customers, 5,000 SMEs and 600 corporates, tells the same story from another angle.

Reliability, security and digital access are now treated as minimum requirements rather than sources of advantage, and customers increasingly benchmark their experiences not only against direct competitors but against the best service they receive in any industry.

A decade ago, the gap between Nigeria's highest- and lowest-rated retail banks was nearly eight percentage points; today it is under three. When products and platforms converge, the experience, and above all the human part of it, is what is left to compete on.

The statistic I keep closest, though, is another from PwC. Nearly nine in ten executives believe customer loyalty has grown in recent years.

Only about four in ten consumers say the same. I keep it close because it describes a risk every leader carries, myself included: the risk of believing our own dashboards. A waiting time can look perfectly respectable on a monthly report and still feel endless to someone standing in an airport at two in the morning. 

The numbers we grade ourselves by are not always the numbers our customers are living.

Closing that gap is not a matter of slogans. Writing about service from a distance is easy; running a service operation means making choices, often under pressure. In my experience, four of them decide almost everything.

The first is what we do with the time technology gives back. I have championed investment in AI-enabled contact platforms, and I want more good technology across our industries, not less. A balance checked at midnight, an order tracked in seconds, a password reset without a queue: these are genuinely good service. 

But every automation decision carries a quieter question: what will we do with the capacity it frees? Used well, technology clears away the routine and lets trained people focus on conversations that are complicated, sensitive, or frightening. It puts the customer's history on the agent's screen before the call connects, so nobody has to repeat herself four times.

Used carelessly, the same tool becomes a wall: an endless phone menu, a chatbot with no exit, a switchboard that rings out. The technology does not make that choice. Leaders do.

The second is what we choose to measure, and here I will be candid about the temptation. Contained and deflected contacts look like savings, and it is easy to celebrate them. But deflection and resolution are different things. A contact can count as "contained" simply because the customer gave up, and a customer who gives up is usually deciding, quietly, where to take her business next. 

The number every leader should watch most closely is not how many contacts were avoided but how many people abandoned their attempt to reach us, because every one of them needed us and did not find us. Alongside it sit three questions that the customer answers rather than the organisation: was the matter resolved on the first attempt, how much effort did it take, and would she speak well of us afterwards? Satisfaction scores tell us how we did.

 Resolution and effort tell us what to fix.

The third is where the investment goes. The hardest case any service leader makes at budget time is for people rather than platforms, and I have made it many times.

The ability to stay steady while someone is furious, to hear the real worry beneath a complaint, and to decide quickly and fairly is a genuine and fairly rare skill.

 It deserves to be selected for, developed and rewarded as seriously as any software. This applies with particular force to the roles organisations most often overlook.

 The receptionist and the switchboard operator are frequently among the least trained and least valued people in the building, and yet they are its first voice and its first face. Give them the knowledge, authority, and respect to help, and they become among the most powerful brand assets an organisation has. 

One that automates the easy work and underinvest in the people left with the hard work has arranged to fail more expensively.

The fourth is whether a complaint ends with one customer or with everyone. Logging complaints is necessary, and in regulated sectors it is mandatory. But logging is not learning. 

The strongest service organisations I know hold regular sessions with their frontline teams, because the people answering the phones and greeting visitors hear an organisation's problems before anyone else does, and they feed those insights back into the business to fix root causes. KPMG's 2025 research shows how costly that gap can be.

Of its Six Pillars of customer experience excellence (Integrity, Resolution, Expectations, Time and Effort, Personalisation and Empathy), Resolution was the lowest-rated among Nigerian retail banking customers for the fifth consecutive year, with customers citing delays in closing complaints and unclear communication. In Ghana, KPMG's researchers summed up the problem in six words: "Apologies are frequent; accountability is not." They traced it to frontline teams that lack the authority, tools or visibility to drive issues to closure, so that empathy becomes a substitute for resolution rather than a path to it. 

That finding comes from banking, one of our most scrutinised sectors, but I have yet to meet a hotline, help desk or reception that could not recognise itself in it. Resolving one customer's problem is service. Fixing the cause so the next thousand customers never experience it is customer experience.

These choices matter everywhere, but they matter more in our markets. Across our continent, trust in institutions is hard-won and quickly lost. 

For many people, a phone call or a visit to a reception desk is their main point of contact with organisations that hold real power over their lives: the bank that holds their savings, the network that carries their livelihood, the insurer, the hospital, the government office.

When someone reaches out with a problem and meets silence, the harm is not confined to her afternoon. It reaches her belief that these institutions were never meant to serve people like her.

Our customers also rarely arrive through a single polished channel. They come through USSD codes on basic phones, WhatsApp, an office in a town where the network is thin, a relative's handset, and social media, where a complaint posted at breakfast can become a national conversation by lunch.

Serving people consistently across all of those doors is far harder than any single channel makes it look. It is the real test of a service operation on the continent, and the organisations that pass it are the ones that treat every door as the front door.

There is one more reason the human voice matters. Fraudsters thrive on uncertainty, and they increasingly impersonate the very organisations customers trust.

 KPMG reports that Nigerian financial institutions lost ₦52.26 billion to fraud in 2024, up from ₦17.67 billion the year before, and that only a third of customers feel very secure about how their digital transactions are handled. A reachable, genuine person is one of the strongest protections a customer has: someone who can confirm what is real and what is not. 

Being reachable is not only good service. It is part of keeping people safe.

Regulation already recognises much of this, and I have spent much of my career on consumer protection, working closely with regulators. In Nigeria, the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act sets out consumers' rights, including the right to redress.

Sector regulators from the Central Bank of Nigeria to the Nigerian Communications Commission have built complaints frameworks on the same plain principles: treat customers fairly, tell them the truth, and resolve their complaints properly and in reasonable time. I take those rules seriously. I also believe they describe a floor rather than a ceiling.

Fair treatment and timely redress are the least any organisation owes the public. Loyalty is earned in what we do above that line.

What does going above it look like? Less than people imagine, and more than most organisations manage. An agent who hears the whole problem before reaching for a script. 

A switchboard operator who connects a caller to someone who can actually help, and checks that the connection worked. A receptionist trusted to solve a problem rather than simply redirecting it. A promised call-back that happens. 

An apology that sounds like a human wrote it. Almost none of this is expensive, and almost none of it can be fully automated, because what the customer is really testing is whether anyone will take ownership of her problem as though it mattered.

So this Customer Service Week, I would offer every leader, in every sector, a simple challenge: remove one thing that makes your organisation harder to reach. Sit beside your receptionist or switchboard operator for an hour and ask which callers they struggle to help, and why.

 Read ten complaints in full, in the customer's own words rather than in a summary. Give one frontline colleague the authority to settle something they currently have to escalate. 

Then call your own organisation's main number or walk in through the front door as a visitor would, and experience what your customers experience. I am taking up that challenge myself. 

Listen to the person on the other end of the line, from both sides, and ask whether your dashboards tell the same story.

The technology will keep improving, and I will keep welcoming it. 

It will answer more simple questions faster, and it will free us to be more human in the moments that matter, if we choose to use it that way. 

What it will not do is care. Caring remains stubbornly and valuably human, and in markets where competitors offer much the same products at much the same prices, it may be the most durable advantage any of us has.

The person on the other end of the line is the reason a customer stays. We would do well to build our organisations around her.

              About the author

By Olufunmilola ‘Funmie’ Aluko | Customer Experience Leader | Chief Brand and Marketing Officer/ Head, Customer Experience, Union Bank of Nigeria

Olufunmilola "Funmie" Aluko is a customer experience and brand leader with 25 years in financial services. A Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP), Certified Experience Management Professional (XMP) and Associate Registered Practitioner in Advertising (arpa), she serves on the Africa Regional Council of the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA), is a member of the American Marketing Association, and was named among the top 20 global CX leaders in 2022. Across senior roles at leading banks, she has built customer service, contact centre and complaints management operations from the ground up, institutionalising governance across complaint management, service standards and Voice of the Customer programmes. She has also led award-winning corporate brand campaigns and helped revitalise legacy institutional brands to compete in a digital-first market. Her work sits where brand promise meets service delivery, and she has long argued that the two cannot be managed apart.

She is Chief Brand and Marketing Officer and Head of Customer Experience at Union Bank of Nigeria, where she leads the Bank's brand, marketing, communications and customer experience agenda and oversees the Contact Centre.

She holds an MBA from Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, and a BA (Hons) from Lagos State University. She is also the voice behind Lessons from Corporate Nigeria, her LinkedIn series of candid reflections on leadership, workplace dynamics and the realities of building a career in corporate Nigeria.

Fidelity Bank: Debit Card vs Credit Card Usage

How to Choose the Right Card for Every Expense

Understanding what happens to your money after a payment is just as important as completing the transaction.

Picture a professional preparing for a trip. The flight must be booked, the hotel needs to be paid for and regular household expenses have not stopped simply because travel is approaching.

There are two cards in the wallet, a debit card and a credit card and both cards can be used to make payments, but they affect the cardholder’s finances differently. 

A debit card draws money directly from the available balance in a linked bank account, while a credit card allows the cardholder to borrow within an approved credit limit and repay the amount under agreed terms.

Understanding the difference between a debit card and a credit card is the first step towards choosing the right payment option for every expense.

What is the difference between a debit card and a credit card?

The main difference lies in the source of the money used for a transaction.

When you pay with a debit card, you are spending money already available in your bank account but when you use a credit card, you are accessing an approved borrowing facility that must be repaid.

This distinction affects budgeting, repayment obligations and the overall cost of a purchase. 

So before you select either card, consider whether you want to pay immediately from your available funds or repay the amount later under the applicable credit terms.

When should you use a debit card?

A debit card may be suitable for everyday expenses such as groceries, fuel, utility payments, subscriptions and meals because each payment is deducted from the linked account, a debit card creates a direct relationship between spending and the available account balance. 

This can help customers who prefer to keep routine expenses closely aligned with money they already have.

Fidelity Bank offers debit card options for different payment needs, including Naira and Dollar cards; hence customers should select a card based on where they intend to use it, the transaction currency and the applicable terms.

Before making a payment, it is important to confirm that the account has sufficient funds and that the card supports the intended transaction.

When should you consider a credit card?

A credit card can provide financial flexibility when the timing of an expense does not match the timing of available funds.

For example, a traveller may need to pay for a flight or hotel before receiving an expected payment;a credit card can help bridge that timing gap, provided there is a clear and realistic repayment plan.

Before using a credit card, ask three important questions:

Is the purchase necessary?

Can I repay the amount by the due date?

What will happen if the expected funds arrive late?

An available credit limit shows how much the cardholder is permitted to borrow. It does not automatically determine how much the customer can comfortably afford to spend.

How to use a credit card responsibly

Credit-card flexibility works best when it is supported by proper planning.

Before completing a transaction, review the applicable interest rate, fees, repayment date and minimum payment requirement. Paying only the minimum amount may leave an outstanding balance that continues to attract interest in line with the card’s terms.

A responsible credit-card plan should identify the source of repayment, the expected repayment date and the total potential cost of the transaction.

These considerations apply to major expenses and smaller purchases. Several modest transactions can accumulate into a significant outstanding balance if spending is not monitored carefully.

Choosing a card for international travel

When choosing a card for travel, customers should look beyond the payment itself. Currency, card acceptance, travel frequency, repayment capacity and available benefits may all influence the decision.

A debit card allows the traveller to spend from available funds, while a credit card provides access to an approved credit facility. The better option will depend on the traveller’s financial habits, destination and ability to manage repayment.

For customers considering premium cards, the value of travel-related benefits should also be assessed against how frequently those benefits will be used.

Fidelity Bank Visa Signature and Visa Infinite Cards

Fidelity Bank’s premium card offering includes the Visa Signature Debit Card and Visa Infinite Credit Card.

The Visa Signature Debit Card draws from the customer’s available funds, while the Visa Infinite Credit Card provides an approved credit facility.

Benefits associated with the Visa Infinite Credit Card include unlimited complimentary access to more than 850 LoungeKey lounges for the cardholder and one guest per visit, concierge services, benefits at more than 900 hotels, multi-trip travel insurance and discounted personal fast-track services at more than 380 international airports.

For frequent travelers, airport lounge access can provide a more comfortable place to wait between flights, while concierge services may assist with selected travel arrangements. The value of these benefits will depend on usage, eligibility and the applicable terms.

Customers considering the Visa Signature Debit Card should also review its separate benefits schedule before making a decision.

Debit card or credit card: Which is better?

Neither option is automatically better for every customer or transaction. The right card is the one that fits the customer’s spending habits, financial position and repayment capacity.

A practical approach may be to use:

A debit card for routine expenses and purchases that can be paid for immediately.

A credit card selectively for planned expenses supported by a clear repayment strategy.

A premium debit or credit card when the associated travel and lifestyle benefits match established spending patterns.

The objective is to choose deliberately rather than simply using whichever card is closest at the time of payment.

 How to request a Fidelity Bank card

Eligible Fidelity Bank debit cards can be requested through the Fidelity Mobile App. Customers interested in a credit card or Fidelity Bank’s premium card suite can visit a branch or speak with a relationship manager to discuss eligibility, fees, repayment terms and available benefits.

Before applying, customers should review the card’s currency, charges, transaction limits, repayment obligations and benefit terms.

Make every card payment a considered decision

Choosing between a debit card and a credit card begins before the transaction.

Ask yourself whose money is being spent today, how the payment will affect your available balance and what financial obligation will remain tomorrow.

When the card matches the expense and the customer has a clear spending or repayment plan, it becomes more than a convenient payment tool. It becomes part of responsible money management.

2026 Customer Service Week

Polaris Bank customers benefit from "The Extra Mile" initiative.

Polaris Bank is set to join organisations around the world to commemorate the 2026 Customer Service Week, which holds from October 5 to 9, under the theme, “The Extra Mile.”

The theme represents a continuation of Polaris Bank's longstanding commitment to putting customers at the heart of its business and continually improving the quality of their banking experience. 

Over the years, the Bank has used Customer Service Week not only to appreciate its customers, but also to recognise employees who consistently demonstrate exceptional service and reinforce the importance of customer-centricity across the organisation.

The Bank’s Customer Service Week celebrations have evolved over the years, reflecting different dimensions of its service culture. 

In 2020, the Bank celebrated under the theme “Dream Team,” to recognise the collective efforts of its employees in sustaining service delivery during a challenging period.

 The 2021 celebration continued with focus on service excellence and customer appreciation, while the 2022 celebration reinforced the Bank’s commitment to customers and the importance of delivering value through meaningful relationships. 

In 2023, the theme “Team Service” highlighted the role of collaboration in delivering seamless customer experiences.

 The 2024 celebration further strengthened the focus on service excellence and customer engagement, while the 2025, themed “Mission: Possible,” emphasised the ability of employees to overcome challenges and deliver exceptional experiences for customers.

This continued focus on customer experience has also received external recognition and validation; one of such was the 2022 KPMG Customer Experience Survey, Polaris Bank was reported as the most improved bank in the retail segment, moving five places to sixth position. 

The recognition reflected on the Bank’s ongoing efforts to improve the quality and consistency of customer interactions.

Speaking ahead of this year’s celebration, the Managing Director/CEO of Polaris Bank, Mr. Kayode Lawal, reaffirmed the importance of customers to the Bank’s continued growth.

Lawal explained that customers are at the heart of everything the bank does; their feedback, trust and partnership challenge the bank to keep improving and delivering value every day.

The 2026 theme, “The Extra Mile,” speaks directly to the evolving expectations of today’s banking customers.

 Going the extra mile can mean listening more closely, resolving an issue faster, providing clearer information, anticipating a customer’s needs, simplifying a process or showing genuine empathy when it matters most.

For Polaris Bank, this commitment extends across its physical and digital touchpoints, including its branch and business network, contact centre and digital banking platforms such as VULTe. 

The Bank continues to focus on creating a consistent and responsive experience, regardless of where or how customers choose to engage.

For this year’s celebration, Polaris Bank will engage customers and recognise service champions through a series of activities across its branches, digital channels and other customer touchpoints. 

The Bank will also use the occasion to encourage customer feedback and strengthen the connection between customer insights and continuous service improvement.

For Polaris Bank, “The Extra Mile” is more than a Customer Service Week theme; it is a commitment to making every customer interaction count.

Cholera Outbreak: Two inmates die in Kano Correctional Facility

Two inmates have died following an outbreak of cholera at the Kurmawa Medium Security Custodial Centre in Kano State.

The Nigerian Correctional Service said the outbreak was confirmed through laboratory tests on September 23rd by its medical team and the Kano State public health authorities.

In a statement issued by its spokesman, Chief Superintendent of Corrections, J.N Osuji, the outbreak was first detected on September 17 after an inmate developed vomiting and diarrhoea.

One of the deaths occurred at the custodial centre, while the other was recorded at the Kano State Infectious Diseases Hospital.

The Controller-General of Corrections, Sylvester Ndidi Nwakuche, has sympathised with the families of the deceased and directed that measures to protect inmates and personnel be sustained.

Fidelity Bank Food Project: Bank Distributes Food Packs To Strengthen Food Security

As part of its commitment to support vulnerable communities as well boost food security across the federation, Fidelity Bank Plc has distributed essential food supplies to more than 2,500 beneficiaries across eight communities in Uromi, Irrua, Edo State, under its Fidelity Food Bank initiative.

The intervention, held at the Uromi Town Hall in Esan Central Local Government Area of the state, underscores the bank’s continued efforts to improve the wellbeing of families and strengthen communities through targeted Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) interventions.

Speaking at the distribution event, the Divisional Head, Brand and Communications, Fidelity Bank Plc, Dr. Meksley Nwagboh, said the intervention demonstrated the bank’s commitment to making a meaningful difference in the communities where it operates.

“Today’s distribution will provide over 2,500 beneficiaries with essential food supplies. This event goes beyond the distribution of food items; it is about uplifting lives, strengthening communities and supporting families with resources that contribute to their wellbeing and resilience.”

Nwagboh noted that the initiative also contributes to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG 2), which seeks to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, as well as promote sustainable agriculture.

He noted that the Uromi intervention was designed to reach families across eight communities and provide immediate assistance to those affected by food insecurity.

The Divisional Head, Brand and Communications, also disclosed that Fidelity Bank distributes 10,000 food packs every month through the Fidelity Food Bank programme, working with 19 partners across the country to reach communities where the need is greatest.

The intervention received commendation from the Edo State Government, with Governor Monday Okpebholo, represented by the state’s Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Security, Jerry Uwangue, praising Fidelity Bank for extending the humanitarian initiative to residents of Uromi.

Uwangue said the intervention demonstrated the important role corporate organisations can play in improving community wellbeing, particularly at a time when families are faced with increasing demands on their resources.

 L-R: Branch Leader, Fidelity Bank Plc, Uromi, Joseph Ero; Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Security, Edo State, Jerry Uwangue; and Team Lead, CSR, Fidelity Bank Plc, Victoria Abuka; at the Fidelity Food Bank distribution event held recently at Udomi, Irrua, in Esan Central Local Government Area, of Edo State.

Beneficiaries of the bank’s gesture also expressed appreciation to Fidelity Bank and its partners for the intervention, noting that the food packs would provide meaningful relief and as well help ease the burden of feeding their families.

Fundamental Rights Lawsuit: Court of Appeal Clears Fidelity Bank Plc

The Court of Appeal Abuja has overturned a Federal Capital Territory High Court decision which held Fidelity Bank Plc liable in a fundamental rights case involving the anti graft agency; the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission(EFCC).

A three-member panel led by Justice Adebukola Banjoko delivered the judgment on September 14th 2026, allowing Fidelity Bank’s appeal and overturning the lower court’s finding of liability against the bank.

The case originated from suit number CV/6258/23, filed by Michael Kundera to enforce his fundamental rights following his arrest and detention between May 16 and 16, 2023 alleging that he was detained without being charged before a court or granted administrative bail.

The respondents in the case included the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, former EFCC Chairman Abdulrasheed Bawa, an EFCC officer identified as Calistus and Fidelity Bank Plc.

In its judgment delivered in April 2024, the FCT High Court, presided over by Justice Peter Kekemeke, declared Michael Kundera’s arrest and detention unlawful and a violation of his fundamental rights.

The court ordered the respondents, jointly or severally, to pay him 10 million naira for the violation and an additional 2 million naira as costs of the action.

The trial judge also observed that Michael Kundera, who was reported to be 75 years old at the time, should not have been subjected to such treatment. 

The court further held that continued invitations and threats against him in relation to a matter that had already been decided exceeded the lawful bounds of the respondents.

Through his counsel, O. Orji, Michael Kundera had linked the dispute to a parcel of land at the Foreign Affairs Quarters, which he claimed lawfully belonged to him.

 He also maintained that the matter was already pending before the Court of Appeal in suit number CA/ABJ/CV/533/2021. 

Among other reliefs, he sought declarations that his arrest and detention violated rights guaranteed under Sections 35 and 36 of the 1999 Constitution, an order restraining further invitations or threats of arrest, and 500 million naira in exemplary or aggravated damages.

Fidelity Bank had challenged the High Court’s decision, arguing that there was no credible evidence connecting the bank to Michael Kundera’s arrest, detention or the alleged infringement of his constitutional rights.

The bank explained that its involvement was limited to a petition submitted to the EFCC concerning allegations of criminal conduct by legal entities that had obtained a 100 million naira loan procurement order for a specific project but allegedly diverted the funds for personal use. 

It maintained that Michael Kundera was not the subject of the petition therefore no basis for holding the bank responsible for the alleged violation of his rights.

Fidelity Bank consequently asked the appellate court to determine whether the trial judge had properly exercised his discretion in granting reliefs against the bank without sufficient material evidence establishing its involvement or liability.

The Court of Appeal upheld the bank’s position. The panel found that there was no credible evidence before the trial court establishing that Fidelity Bank had infringed Michael Kundera’s fundamental rights. It also held that he had failed to discharge the burden of proof required to establish wrongdoing by the bank and justify the reliefs granted against it.

The appellate court’s decision consequently reversed the finding of liability against Fidelity Bank and cleared the bank of responsibility for the alleged infringement.

HerFidelity Initiative By Fidelity Bank

Why the Right Community Could Be a Woman’s Greatest Advantage

For generations, women have been encouraged to work harder, save more and persevere. Yet personal determination, while essential, cannot overcome every barrier. Progress happens faster when ambition is supported by access to finance, practical knowledge, trusted networks and opportunities for growth.

Across Nigeria, women are building businesses, advancing careers, supporting families and creating employment. Their contributions are visible in boardrooms, markets, offices, factories and communities. However, many still face limited access to capital, business guidance and professional networks that could help them move from potential to sustained success.

This reality explains the growing appeal of communities designed specifically to help women thrive. Women increasingly want financial relationships that understand their ambitions, respond to their realities and support their development beyond traditional banking transactions.

HerFidelity, the women focused proposition from Fidelity Bank, reflects this changing expectation. It brings together financial services, business education, enterprise support, networking and lifestyle engagement within a community created for women at different stages of their personal, professional and entrepreneurial journeys.

More Than Access to Finance

Money matters, but access to finance is only one part of the journey. Sustainable progress also requires knowledge, confidence, meaningful relationships and personal wellbeing.

HerFidelity addresses these interconnected needs through four focus areas, financial support, business education and capacity building, entrepreneurship support, and health and wellness.

Through FundHer, eligible women led businesses can access financing for working capital, asset acquisition and business expansion, subject to the applicable terms and requirements. This support can help entrepreneurs strengthen their operations, pursue new opportunities and position their businesses for sustainable growth.

However, capital achieves greater impact when women also have the knowledge to deploy it effectively. HerFidelity therefore connects women to training, mentorship and networking opportunities that can strengthen their financial and business decisions.

These opportunities can be just as valuable as funding. The right mentor can provide clarity during a difficult business decision. A trusted network can create access to customers, partners and new markets. Practical knowledge can help an entrepreneur avoid costly mistakes and build with greater confidence.

The inclusion of health and wellness also reflects a more complete understanding of success. Women frequently balance demanding professional, business and family responsibilities. Supporting their physical, mental and emotional wellbeing is therefore important to building sustainable achievement.

The Power of Community

The most compelling idea behind HerFidelity is simple. Women make greater progress when they have the right support around them.

A business owner may need financing today and mentorship tomorrow. A young professional may begin by learning how to manage money and later require a network to support her entrepreneurial ambitions. An experienced executive may need a platform through which she can share knowledge, mentor others and create opportunities for the next generation.

A strong community connects these women and their experiences. It allows knowledge to circulate, relationships to grow and opportunities to reach more people. One womans progress can inspire another woman, strengthen a family and create wider economic value.

This is how a banking proposition can become something more meaningful. It can become a platform through which women access opportunities, develop confidence and support one another.

A Smarter Choice for Women

For Nigerian women, joining HerFidelity is about more than choosing a financial product. It is about entering a community designed to recognise their goals and provide relevant support throughout their journey.

Whether the objective is to expand a business, improve financial confidence, develop new capabilities or form meaningful professional relationships, HerFidelity offers a platform for taking the next step.

The financial institutions that will matter most in the future are those that help customers translate money into meaningful progress. For women, that means access to finance supported by knowledge, networks, wellbeing and a community that understands their aspirations.

HerFidelity represents that broader vision. It recognises women as entrepreneurs, professionals, leaders and contributors to national development. It also acknowledges that when women receive the right support, the benefits extend to businesses, families and communities.

For women ready to build, learn, connect and grow, HerFidelity offers more than banking. It offers a community where ambition can find opportunity and where individual progress can become shared prosperity.