It is the beginning of a New Year with lots of planning, preparations and resolutions to bring about a worthwhile journey through the course of the year. The New Year also heralds the beginning of a new school term as students return to school after the end of year seasonal holidays. First Bank of Nigeria Limited, Nigeria’s most valuable Bank brand is again set to support schools and educational institutions with their educational requirements to enhance preparations for the school year. The Bank’s support for educational development of the child and the institution is an offshoot of the Bank’s initiative for SMEs. FirstBank has developed an array of products and solutions targeted at enabling schools at all levels seamlessly automate their administrative processes and optimise the process for school fees collections whilst they also acquire attractive educational facilities to support their business.
The Bank’s educational products and solutions include the FirstEduPortal, SkoolPay, and the FirstEdu Loan. Others are Operational Vehicle Loan, Commercial Mortgage and Personal Loan against Salary (PLAS) which enhances Parents/Guidance’s capacity to pay their wards’ school fees.
The FirstEduPortal facilitates online application and admission, result checking, course scheduling, transcript request, e-learning as well as school fees payment and confirmation amongst others. The portal gives educational institutions the option of receiving payments from their students via debit cards online, PoS, ATMs and through any FirstBank branch. A web portal will be developed for the schools where it is non-existent. The SkoolPay solution is for educational institutions that do not require a sophisticated system in supporting their collections. SkoolPay enables schools to receive payments through FirstBank branches nationwide. The solution provides detailed online real-time reports of payments received by the school and the payments are updated on the school’s internal system if required.
The FirstEdu loan is targeted at private Nursery, Secondary and A-Levels schools. The product offers opportunity for private schools to access flexible funding to meet urgent cash flow needs, replace old furniture and equipment, as well as refurbish dilapidated buildings and classroom blocks. With this product, school owners/proprietors can stay ahead of competition in providing educational services and support to the target population by maintaining acceptable standard infrastructure at all times. This product allows the customer access up to N10 million with no tangible collateral required apart from the domiciliation of school account with the Bank. This reduces the cost of borrowing to the customer and eliminates the challenges posed by the provision of additional demanding collaterals.
The Operational Vehicle Loan is targeted at registered businesses. It allows the entrepreneur to acquire brand new vehicles for the day to day operation of the business. Organisations can take advantage of this facility to purchase school buses in the case of school proprietors and even upscale their staff welfare schemes through provision of staff buses. The organisation can access up to N10 million, for a single transaction, with flexible repayment plan spread over 36 months. The minimum equity contribution is 30% and the purchased vehicle doubles as collateral for the loan.
The commercial mortgage facility offers flexible financing options for the acquisition of landed property for commercial purposes. Customers can now own their business premises and even earn rental income on acquired property. This product enhances wealth creation for customers given the capital appreciation on the property on the long run as well as the additional source of revenue from rentals. Again, the property financed is the only collateral required.
Personal Loan against Salary (PLAS) offers customers in paid employment access to cash to meet immediate financial needs such as payment of school fees, medical treatment, holiday expenses, etc. PLAS has a flexible repayment plan spread up to 48 months for our customers’ convenience. There is no equity contribution or collateral requirement. Only a salary account will qualify you to access PLAS if you work with any of FirstBank’s approved list of employers.
FirstBank’s Fee Collection platforms mitigates the challenges of the traditional fee collection methods which requires direct cash or cheque lodgments into the school’s accounts in banks or payments at the school’s bursary department. These may lead to cash suppression, fraudulent diversion of funds, reconciliation issues, forgery of deposit slips, payment mismatch and insufficient payment information, amongst several other challenges. Also, FirstBank’s educational facilities are offered without collaterals. So as the new school term resumes, the Bank has the right products just for you and is poised to constantly provide the platform to support the life styles of its teeming customers. Customers and stakeholders are enjoined to visit any FirstBank branch for further information about its school solutions.