Following the successful completion of its merger with Diamond Bank, Access Bank Plc on Sunday unveiled its new brand logo to an enthusiastic audience at a social event in Lagos.
The bank’s Executive, Personal Banking, Mr Victor Etuokwu, who spoke on the latest re-branding of deposit money bank (DMB), disclosed that 400 branches would be displaying the new logo from Monday, April 1.
He described the bank’s merger with Diamond Bank as birthing a Nigerian banking powerhouse and a Pan-African financial services champion with about 27,000 staff across 592 branches.
According to him, the successful merger initiative had transformed Access Bank to become the largest retail bank in Africa by customer base, spanning three continents, 12 countries and with 29 million customers..
Etuokwu explained further that the new visual logo combined the best of Access Bank and Diamond Bank.
He enthused: “Diamond Bank’s was youthful, vibrant and human. Access Bank’ s was trusted, global and fast. Bringing them together to capture the strength created through the merger meant drawing from the essence of each logo but refreshing them to create a sense of energy and forward momentum.
“The diamond shape is fused into the three chevrons, which radiate in all directions to create layers around a core. The retention of the access typeface, colour and font is complemented by the orange logo, which draws from the colour palettes of both banks”, he added.
Expatiating on the new logo’s symbolic importance, the banker explained that the use of the diamond colour palette was emphasised with the dominance of green in its retail application, ensuring continuity for retail customers, whilst the dominant orange in the corporate application provides the same sense of familiarity to Access Bank’s customers.
Etuokwu maintained that the best of the former two DMBs were fused together in the new bank to serve customers better, saying that two banks merged to create more value to customers in a rapidly changing financial services sector.
Commenting on overlapping branches of the two banks, he said that the bank would not close down any branch within the next year but rather would wait for customers to decide even as some might be changed to e-centres.
In his remarks at the event, Access Bank Adviser, Retail Banking, Mr Rob Giles, said that some of the old Diamond Bank products including, the Diamond Extra and Diamond Exclusive would maintain their names in the new merged bank.
Giles promised that the new bank would continue to offer seamless service delivery to customers with them having more access to international banking in the enlarged entity.
