KAMPALA/UGANDA: Centenary Bank in Uganda is leading the digital impact and financial reporting space in the country following its bagging of multiple awards in a period of two months.
The milestones come on the heels of its intended expansion into the Southern African and South Sudan markets next year, announced recently.
Centenary Bank, the country’s largest commercial bank in terms of customer numbers, was crowned Digital Brand of the Year in the Digital Impact Award Africa held at the Kampala Serena Hotel on Friday last week in recognition of excellence in spearheading the use of digital mediums to serve communities. In addition to this milestone, the bank also emerged runners-up in the categories below such as “Banking Innovation Excellence (which reflects its CenteMobile Loan service) and Community/MFI Banking Innovation Excellence (through its Agent Banking services).
“We have a network of over 5,800 agents countrywide, which is the largest in the industry. We are delighted to have won the Digital Brand of the Year at the 2022 Digital Impact Awards Africa. The awards celebrate brands like us, which are spearheading the use of digital platforms to serve customers,” reads a statement to MediaScape News from the bank.
The awards were organized by HiPipo Foundation Ltd, a leading digital age organization with operations covering digital innovation, financial inclusion, and inclusive finance and music.
The award saw Centenary Bank emerge winner with gold while MTN Uganda and MTN MoMo settled for diamond.
The Digital Impact Award Africa winners are selected based on submissions of their products and services to the jury, nominations, and results obtained from public voting.
In this particular awards process, the HiPipo Foundation Ltd adopted a multi-phase methodology for researching and assessing digital services, products, innovations, and web, mobile, and social media applications for their ingenuity and adherence to best practices, making them authentic and believable.
The process, for instance, involved a public Nominations Submission lasting two months, a Research Panel Submission, an independent awards jury, rigorous research on the nominees, and the use of a public voting process which HiPipo Foundation Chief Operations Officer, Nicholas Kalungi, said it attracted more than 1,000 submissions competing for recognition in 11 categories.
Eng. David Karubanga, the Patron of HiPipo, Member of Parliament for Kigorobya County, and Chairperson of the Committee on Physical Infrastructure at the Uganda Parliament, thanked all companies that are spearheading Uganda’s digital and financial inclusion journey.
“I am happy to see the progress that the country is making on matters of digital and financial inclusion. The efforts of the government and the private sector are all contributing to this success. The Digital Impact Awards Africa continue to play a key awareness and appreciation role,” he said
More Juicy Awards
In the same week, the Centenary Group was named the winner in the Banking Services category of the 2022 Financial Reporting Awards (FiRe). Centenary Group also came in third in the Excellence in Integrated Reporting category during the awards ceremony. The Group was also recognized with an Outstanding Achievement Award in Corporate Governance Reporting and Sustainability Reporting. Centenary Group also came in third in the Excellence in Integrated Reporting category during the 2022 Financial Reporting Awards (FiRe) ceremony.
The FiRe Awards are an annual ceremony through which excellence in financial reporting is recognized and rewarded. Organizations in the private, public and non-profit sectors participate by submission of their annual reports for the year under review. The best performers are rewarded based on their compliance with International Financial Reporting Standards.
Criteria
The FiRe Awards have a review methodology that is usually shared within the feedback report to all participating entities and aims at assessing the extent of integrated reporting among organizations. An integrated annual report seamlessly fuses sustainability reporting, corporate governance reporting, management commentary, and financial reports.
The FiRe Awards evaluations are based on a number of concepts, principles, guidelines, standards, and frameworks including a Review for compliance with the Financial Reporting Framework, a Review of management commentary, and discussions on aspects of corporate governance; sustainability reporting, and risk management among others; Review of the extent of presentation and communication of the entity’s activities and performance at least from a non-technical perspective.
About Centenary Bank:
Centenary Group also owns Centenary Rural Development Bank, the bank with the largest customer base in Uganda. Centenary Bank has over 2.6 million customers, including 12,000 SACCOS and over 46,000 Village Savings and Lending Associations (VSLA) based in rural areas. The bank has an extensive branch network of 80 branches covering all regions of Uganda, supported by 189 automated teller machines and over 5,200 bank agents countrywide, making it the largest footprint in the country.
The Group also owns Centenary Technology Services Limited (Cente-Tech), the Group technology company, with a combined professional ICT experience of over 90 years. As the group technology company, Centenary Technology Services provides technical leadership to the group subsidiaries to enable them to grow and provide meaningful services to the rural poor.