Access Bank unveils paperless account opening platform for businesses -

Access Bank plc, Nigeria’s largest lender in the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) space has unveiled an online account opening platform for unregistered businesses.

The online account opening platform is a paperless and seamless digital process which allows customers to register their business account within five minutes without visiting a branch. And it is available for anyone above 18 years across Nigeria and the Diaspora.

In a statement from the bank, Ayodele Olojede, group head, emerging businesses, said “It is about the millions of local businesses struggling to lay their foundation and growth. As part of our commitment to support entrepreneurs and small business owners, we have created a simple seamless digital platform for individuals to obtain an affordable and flexible account for their unregistered businesses which will give them access to digital loans from N250,000 to N10million, Access to capacity building programs and trainings, Business registration at a discounted rate for those unregistered businesses, Invitation to link up with investors and build a website with as little as N20,000.

We believe SMEs play a major role in most economies, particularly in developing countries. SMEs account for the majority of businesses worldwide and are important contributors to job creation and global economic development. They represent about 90 percent of businesses and more than 50 percent of employment worldwide” Ayodele concluded.

Ayodele also called on SMEs owners to ensure proper records keeping for their businesses and advised them against mixing business funds with personal expenses as it leads to poor corporate governance and risk of misappropriation of cash belonging to the business

Access Bank is recognized as one of the most innovative financial institutions in Africa. With over 40 million customers and 600 branches nationwide, it offers a range of products and services tailored to suit needs and lifestyle of its customers across multiple segments. The Bank offers various SMEs digitalised solutions to cater the vast majority of MSMEs. Some of these innovations include online account opening platform for businesses, digital lending platform, Digital payment solution platform (Swiftpay), Access to market (Discounted Website), and our capacity-building programmes.

Hope Moses-Ashike

Hope Moses-Ashike is an Associate Editor, Banking and Finance, with more than a decade of experience reporting on Nigeria’s financial system and broader economy. She closely tracks market movements, monetary policy decisions, company disclosures, regulatory actions, economic indicators, and global developments, and interprets what they mean for businesses, investors, policymakers, and households. Her reporting helps readers understand complex issues such as inflation trends, foreign exchange market dynamics, interest rate decisions, bank performance, and investment risks. She also covers major international events and periodically travels to Washington, D.C., to report on the World Bank/IMF Spring and Annual Meetings. Her dedication to financial journalism has earned her multiple recognitions and invitations to high-level professional development programmes. She is an alumna of the International Visitors Leadership Programme (IVLP) in the United States and holds an Advanced Financial Journalism Certificate from the Press Association Training in London, UK. Her other notable achievements include completing the Lagos Business School CMC Programme, the Bloomberg Media Africa Initiative Programme, and a Master Class in Journalism at Rhodes University in South Africa.