CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

The tempo of our effort in the arena of social advocacy and corporate responsibility has been sustained in the last one year, most significantly, with the Free Eye Expedition in Damaturu, Yobe State, in October 2005. As a responsible corporate citizen, the Bank is determined to continue its contributions in various areas of our national life.

For six years, the bank has made it an obligation to help eliminate all forms of avoidable blindness. After considerations, we decided to explore Damaturu to enable the less privileged with eye defects from the North East Region benefit from the annual project.

Plans are underway to expand the scope of this project which serves as our contribution towards the Vision 2020 project which aims to reduce the incidence of blindness by half.

The Bank also bolstered its fight against the HIV/AIDS scourge through support to the Nigerian Business Coalition Against AIDS (NIBUCAA), an NGO made up of companies that are committed to providing leadership towards advancing the national response to the pandemic.

In the area of education and youth development, the Bank's record is unprecedented. Of particular mention is our sponsorship of the maiden edition of The West Africa Universities Games (WUGA) hosted by University of Lagos. The underlying objective is the need to engage youths in positive social activity to reduce delinquency and involvement in societal ills.

Other initiatives towards youth development are:

• Donation of a brand new coaster bus to the sports council of the University of Lagos
• Donation of a brand new coaster bus to authorities of The Nnamdi Azikiwe University , Awka
• Donation of computers and ICT facilities to authorities of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri
• Community development through sports in partnership with the British Council Nigeria.
• Inauguration of the Bright Ideas Campaign aimed at bringing creative business ideas to life.

For the Bank, a generation of healthy youth is catalyst to National development.

Not relenting in our determination to give back to society, we are currently streamlining our CSR strategy to ensure that our efforts are maximized to the benefit of the society's most needy.