Access Bank Wins Maritime Award
 8th NOV 2006

Access Bank Plc has won this year’s Maritime Quality Service Award with the boosting of the nation’s shipping and other maritime related businesses with its On-Line Shipping Document Tracker.

In line with its avowed determination to break new business grounds and expand its operation frontiers in international trade, the bank had introduced in June this year, the On-Line Shipping Document Tracker to facilitate importation and exportation documentation processes, clearance of goods and decongestion of the nation’s seaports.

The product allows the bank’s customers in the shipping businesses to track the status of their shipping documents online from the comfort of either their offices, or wherever there is Internet connection. Maritime operators who witnessed the demonstration of the tracker have since hailed its introduction as a revolutionary development for maritime.

The unique product was introduced at the crucial time when the traditional practice of manual monitoring of shipping documents by customers has not only become grossly inefficient but also anachronistic, given the global developments particularly the increasing hi-tech driven international trade transactions.

It was in recognition of the dramatic and efficient manner which the product has brought about change in the shipping industry that has informed the "Innovative Trade Facilitation Product Award" instituted by the Maritime Quality Service Foundation (MQSF).

In a congratulatory letter signed by the Chairman Board of Trustee of the Foundation, Alhaji B.A Musa, informing the bank of the award, it stated that maritime operators and stakeholders, especially importers and their freight forwarders have in agreement rated the product as one that has transformed the delivery of international trade services as well as alleviating the agony of the manual documentation, late arrival and lack of track knowledge of actual destination – all of which cause delay clearing goods at the ports.

The shipping document tracker represents the beginning of the bank’s incursion into maritime businesses as it is studying how it could empower indigenous shipping companies to play their primary role in the provision of the required local content to the oil and gas international trade and the full control of local maritime business as enshrined in the Cabotage law.

Although investments in the maritime business requires long gestation period, indigenous shipping companies needs the necessary back up to break through in terms of shipbuilding and acquisition which are prerequisites for successful Cabotage implementation in Nigeria.

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