African career banker Felix Bikpo has been awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award 2021 by the prestigious African Banker Awards, according to a statement shared with APA on Friday.
Bikpo, the African Guarantee Fund’s founding CEO and current board chairman was picked for the award in recognition of an illustrious career spanning almost 30 years marked by a remarkable achievement in the banking and financial sectors.
“Felix Bikpo has has been a pioneer, challenging the status quo and helping the banking sector evolve, modernize and meet the continent’s most pressing needs. His work at the Guarantee Fund for Private Investments in West Africa (GARI Fund) and then at the African Guarantee Fund (AGF) provided a new vision and a new framework to support the real economy drivers on the continent.” said Omar Ben Yedder, Managing Director of the African Banker Awards.
The award by the African Banker magazine and IC Events is an annual flagship event held,on the sidelines of the African Development Bank’s yearly general meetings.
It brings together industry leaders from Africa and the world to fete the achievements of those driving economic growth and development and creating new opportunities for citizens and communities on the continent.
It also looks to inspire new generations of bankers shaping Africa’s future.
“I’m incredibly proud of the growth that AGF has attained over the years, under the leadership of a visionary and proud pan–Africanist like Felix Bikpo, to a point where we now have a fully–fledged subsidiary in Togo to oversee our West African portfolio.” said Jules Ngankam, Group CEO of AGF.
“His leadership during his tenure as CEO has positively impacted the growth of the SME sector in Africa. At the point of his transition from CEO to Board Chairman, AGF had signed guarantee agreements with financial institutions in 40 countries through which we have unlocked more than USD 2billion of financing for SMEs.” Mr. Ngankam added.
The African Guarantee Fund is a non–banking financial institution whose objective is to promote economic development, improve the employment climate and reduce poverty in Africa.
The iniatiative aims to achieve this by providing financial institutions with guarantee products and capacity development assistance specifically intended to support SMEs in Africa.
African Guarantee Fund was founded by the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and Development (AECID) and the African Development Bank (AfDB).
The French Development Agency (AFD), Nordic Development Fund (NDF), Investment Fund for Developing Countries (IFU) and KfW Development Bank (KfW) are also partners of the AGF which has AA– rating by Fitch Ratings Agency.
PR/as/APA