The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) has inaugurated the FirstBank chapter to strengthen goals and technical skills within the accounting field for the bank’s employees and the larger professional community.

BRANDPOWER reports that the inauguration took place at the Firstbank’s headquarters on Monday in Lagos, when the council of the institute paid a courtesy visit to the bank .

The President ICAN, Dr Innocent Okwuosa, said that the bank’s longstanding dedication to excellence, with its 330 associates holding ICAN membership, justified the establishment of the FirstBank chapter.

“We want to commend FirstBank and its subsidiary for promoting excellence in banking in over 130 years of history and we acknowledge that FirstBank is truly the African bank of first choice.

“From the data we collected, we understand we have over 330 Chartered Accountants within your workforce; ICAN has over eight chapters and the chapters are situated within organisations for grassroots mobilisation.

“With what we have gathered about membership of ICAN in FirstBank, I am pleased to inform you that FirstBank has met the conditions set by the council for the establishment of a chapter.

“The council has approved the establishment of ICAN FirstBank chapter,’’ Okwuosa said.

The Chief Executive Officer, First Bank of Nigeria Ltd., Dr Adesola Adeduntan, said that 70 percent of the bank’s leadership consists of ICAN members.

He urged the institute to continually develop and improve on its skills to stay current with the latest trends.

“I appreciate the council for deciding to give us this FirstBank chapter of ICAN.

“When you have a leadership team that is already 70 per cent ICAN membership that then speaks volumes about how that level of membership cascades across the entire organisation.

“We will continue to focus on getting our people to continuously update themselves; we will keep re-emphasising the fact that we are operating in an environment that is volatile.

“This means that the solution that worked yesterday may not necessarily be up to date.

“We have assured our stakeholders that a 130-year entity will not fail on our watch, we will continuously invest in talent and in people to ensure that our people have the knowledge and capabilities that are relevant today.

“We are also giving them knowledge and capabilities that will be relevant tomorrow and going into the future,”Adeduntan said.