Today is my last day at Access Bank

Today marks my last day as an Access Bank employee. It’s been quite a trip.Jogging down memory lane, I came to Access Bank from Standard Trust Bank in August 2002. Spent 2 months at the training school where I met some of the craziest human beings. Surprisingly, some of those guys there are still my friends (Nnamdi "rubber punk" Okafor, Martina Eseigbe, Kemi Lewis, and Tayo "Omoba" Aileru).

Started working at the eBanking department and wasted practically the first 8 months until my old boss left and someone else came to run the whole IT group. All of a sudden, the task of running our little department fell on my rather slender shoulder.  But with all glory going to God, I have been able to move the department from mediocrity to become the innovation and idea lab of the bank. We have been able to create paradigm shifts and release block buster applications to the benefit of the bank and its customers.

One thing I will never forget is the opportunities you get to excel in this bank. Also, everyone is open; competition is keen and cut-throat. But every organization has got its own bathroom slime too. If you aren’t careful, you could slip on those.

In Access Bank, I learnt ColdFusion, AD programming, Oracle, MS SQL, and practically all the important technologies highlighting my professional career.

I believe Access Bank is going places.

I am going to miss the guys in my department, Biyi, Alison, Kemi, Blessing, Rotimi. The general IT group would also have fond places in my heart. I can’t but mention Sina, Adeola, Lanre, Mike "Jagbo Small", Sanmi "Shorty", Moses "The Menace", Emmanuel "Agent A", Josephine "Iya Ibeji", Seyi "Opa", Idowu "ID on the street"& The list goes on and on.

I can’t forget people downstairs too (banking hall), Moji, Bola "Shorty", Tomi, Yellow Rose, etc. Same for guys from the head office: Anne Monye of library, "Aunty" Kunbi Anifowose, VSlimeE, etc.

And where am I going to now? That is a good question. Just watch out.

Author: Adedeji Olowe

Adédèjì is the founder of Lendsqr, the loan infrastructure fintech powering lenders at scale. Before this, he led Trium Limited, the corporate VC of the Coronation Group, which invested in Woven Finance, Sparkle Bank, Clane, and L1ght, amongst others. He has almost two decades of banking experience, including stints as the Divisional Head of Electronic Banking at Fidelity Bank Plc. He drove the turnaround of the bank’s digital business. He was previously responsible for United Bank for Africa Group’s payment card business across 19 countries. Alongside other industry veterans, he founded Open Banking Nigeria, the nonprofit driving the development and adoption of a common API standard for the Nigerian financial industry. Beyond open APIs, Adédèjì works deeply within the fintech ecosystem; he’s the board chairman at Paystack. Adédèjì is a renowned fintech pundit and has been blogging on technology and payments at dejiolowe.com since 2001.

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