The Chairman of BUA Group, Abdul samad Rabiu has expressed satisfaction that Herbert Wigwe, the Group Managing Director of Access Holding Plc is taking over from him as the president of the council.
Wigwe took over the affairs of the council barely six months after Access Holdings Plc set up Hydrogen, a payment service firm in the European economic powerhouse.
According to Rabiu, Wigwe’s vast experience in global finance will be useful for taking the council to a grater height.
The BUA chairman comment is contained in a statement, issued on Wednesday in Paris, France by the council stating that Wigwe has taken over its affairs after Rabiu ‘s two terms ended.
“During Rabiu’s tenure as the pioneer President, the Council achieved significant milestones in strengthening business ties between France and Nigeria, promoting mutual growth and prosperity.
“Under his leadership, the Council organized two France-Nigeria Business Forums in Paris, a meeting in Lagos, and a session in Paris last year, which led to several fruitful partnerships between French and Nigerian businesses.
“Rabiu also oversaw the Council’s support for various initiatives fostering collaboration between the brightest minds of both nations and nurturing the next generation of entrepreneurs.”
The council, inaugurated in 2021, brings together the top businesses in Nigeria and France to improve business relations while ensuring routine cooperation on immense economic benefits for both countries.
Speaking of Hydrogen last November, Wigwe informed stakeholders that the firm as a subsidiary of Access Holdings would be supporting intra-Africa trade, in partnership with some Development Financial Institutions, DFIs, for payment across the continent.
He said the firm is a testament of the bank’s commitment to diversify beyond the African continent.
Wigwe said, “We share the fact with you that we wanted to be known as Africa’s gateway to the world and what that meant was that we are going to be responsible for payments across the entire continent, irrespective of where you are and where you’re transferring money from. We are going to support intra-African trade, which is a big problem today.
“The bank cannot do this alone because these are very specialist skills and it will allow us to be able to ensure that there are settlements even in countries where we don’t have a physical presence. The idea is that wherever you are in the world, if you’re making a transfer to anybody across the continent, one out of every three transactions that come into the continent will be settled on Access Bank’s platform.
“They do have operational risk, obviously, but we do have strong compliance process and technology platform, which we will enhance to ensure that operational risks will be significantly mitigated.
“We will continue to spread across Europe to make sure that at the end of the day, perhaps ten years from now, we would have created a very strong diversified entity, not just relying on Nigeria or Africa but also having a broad diversified income base with good quality earnings coming from countries where the inflation rates are less than that of the country, thereby making us much stronger franchise than any other financial institution in the continent,” he said.
