Polaris Bank Dominates 2025 BAFI Awards — Wins ‘Digital Bank’ and ‘Best MSME Bank’ for Record Fifth Consecutive Year

Polaris Bank has reaffirmed its dominance in Nigeria’s digital banking space by clinching the ‘Digital Bank of the Year’ and ‘Best Bank for MSMEs’ awards at the 2025 BusinessDay Banks and Other Financial Institutions (BAFI) Awards.

This marks the fifth time the Bank has been named Digital Bank of the Year, underscoring its industry leadership, customer trust, and unwavering commitment to innovation and inclusion.

Polaris Bank continues to redefine digital banking in Nigeria through bold innovations, customer-centric solutions, and sector-shaping initiatives.

With an unrelenting focus on financial inclusion and customer empowerment, the Bank’s digitally led strategy has transformed how Nigerians access, manage, and grow their finances..

At the heart of this transformation is VULTe, Polaris Bank’s flagship digital platform, which has recorded phenomenal growth and activity in 2025.

Within the first eight months of the year, the platform handled an extraordinary volume of transactions, reflecting the deep trust, widespread adoption, and scale of Polaris Bank’s digital ecosystem.

More than just enabling seamless banking, VULTe continues to power the financial backbone of businesses and individuals across Nigeria.

Far beyond being another banking app, the upgraded VULTe 3.0 stands as a best-in-class digital banking solution.

It integrates AI-powered features that personalize user experiences, automate engagement, and enhance operational efficiency. Since its initial launch in 2021, Polaris Bank has maintained a culture of continuous improvement, upgrading features based on real customer feedback to elevate user experience and set new industry standards.

This agile approach ensures that VULTe is not only keeping pace with the global digital economy but is also leading the charge in Nigeria.

Receiving the awards on behalf of the Bank, the Chief Digital Officer, Dele Adeyinka described the recognition as an affirmation of Polaris Bank’s people-centered digital transformation journey.

“This award is a celebration of our customers, whose trust and engagement inspire every innovation we create. VULTe is more than a platform; it is a community of empowered users who bank, borrow, save, and grow with ease. Every update and every feature we roll out reflects our commitment to making banking smarter, simpler, and more inclusive for every Nigerian,” Adeyinka said.

Polaris Bank equally recognizes that MSMEs remain the backbone of Nigeria’s economy and has deliberately deployed digital solutions to empower this vital sector. 

In the second quarter of 2025, the Bank launched a major funding initiative to empower professionals in the creative industry through strategic partnerships with Woodhall Capital (UK), the Lagos State Government, and the British Government.

In the months that followed, the Bank expanded its support to hundreds of small and medium enterprises across various sectors, with a strong focus on providing financing to women-owned and women-led businesses in education, fashion, and other key industries. 

These interventions underscore Polaris Bank’s enduring commitment to inclusive growth and gender empowerment.

Through simplified applications, digital credit assessments, and integration with VULTe for Business, SMEs enjoy faster and easier access to working capital, free from the traditional bottlenecks of banking. This approach is turning business survival stories into success stories across Nigeria.

Speaking on the double recognition, the Managing Director/CEO of Polaris Bank, Kayode Lawal, dedicated the awards to the Bank’s customers and employees.

“Winning the Digital Bank of the Year (for the fifth time) and Best Bank for MSMEs (for the fourth time) is both humbling and inspiring. It validates our belief that true innovation begins and ends with the customer. Our mission has always been to use technology as an enabler of opportunity – to make banking not only easier but transformative. These awards belong to our customers, our people, and every partner who believes in our vision,” Lawal said.

He further assured that Polaris Bank will continue to invest in digital infrastructure, as it did recently with a seamless core banking application upgrade, enhance financial inclusion, and deliver consistent, integrated experiences across all customer channels.

BusinessDay has long celebrated innovation and corporate leadership, and Polaris Bank’s story exemplifies both. With VULTe 3.0, the Bank has built Nigeria’s most agile AI-driven digital banking ecosystem.

By placing customer feedback at the core of product evolution, Polaris ensures that every innovation addresses real needs. Through digital credit expansion and data-driven insights, the Bank is directly fueling economic growth and empowering Nigeria’s entrepreneurial base.

In Nigeria’s banking and financial sector where many promise transformation, Polaris Bank continues to deliver measurable, customer-validated results. Through its digitally led initiatives, relentless pursuit of customer satisfaction, and strong contributions to SME growth, Polaris Bank is not merely adapting to the digital age – it is defining it.

Polaris Bank is a leading customer-centric financial institution positioned as a digital, future-forward bank committed to delivering industry-defining value across retail, SME, and corporate segments through innovation, inclusion, and excellence.