FirstBank Nigeria Plc has won MoneyGram’s Best African Receiving Agent Award for 2010, thus confirming its  leadership  in the nation’s financial services industry.

The award, which was announced at the just concluded MoneyGram Agent’s Conference  in Cape Town, South Africa is coming barely a year after the bank joined MoneyGram as one of its receiving agents.

In a keenly competitive money transfer market hitherto dominated by banks who started with the company when it opened shop in Nigeria in 1998, FirstBank was adjudged to be the bank that has the best growth rate from the period May 2010 to December 2010. The award was presented during the four-day MoneyGram conference attended by all partner agents across Africa.

Apart from MoneyGram, FirstBank is the pioneer agent of Western Union Money Transfer when the company entered the Nigerian market in 1995, and today, controls the chunk of the market share.

Ezinne Obikile, Group Head, Products and Marketing Support of FirstBank said the partnership with MoneyGram, which started barely a year ago, has grown into a financial service that is accessible and convenient to customers all over the country. “We are pleased that within a short transaction period of seven months, FirstBank emerged the best receiving agent in Africa and we are going to continue to work at being the best”.

In May 2010, FirstBank joined the MoneyGram network in Nigeria, a partnership that has allowed the bank provide wider choice of payment channels while exploiting the opportunities in the customer segment that prefer to use MoneyGram.

FirstBank is Nigeria’s most diversified full-suite financial service group, providing over a century of dependable services to customers, The bank was the first to introduce International Money Transfer services to the Nigerian market and recently won the Best Financial Reporting Company Award at the just-concluded Africa investor – Reuters Analysts’ and Fund Managers’ Forum, usually held in association with Thomson Reuters in the United Kingdom.

With over 5 million customers, 11 financial subsidiaries, and presence in the UK, France, South Africa and China, the bank is an iconic brand in Nigeria’s financial services industry.