Zenith Bank Plc, recently crowned the Best Bank in Nigeria at both the 2025 Global Finance and Euromoney Awards for Excellence, has announced the completion of its latest technological upgrade in preparation for the peak festive season. Following a landmark year of financial growth and digital transformation, the bank is positioned to deliver a secure and comfortable banking experience for millions of customers during the Christmas and New Year rush.
It is no news that the festive season usually comes with high transaction volumes capable of straining, overstretching and stalling regular financial systems. To counter this, Zenith Bank introduced “Project Tiger”; a project which saw the successful migration of the bank’s core infrastructure to the world-class, cloud-native banking platform known as Oracle FLEXCUBE. This move involved a significant increase in IT spending of up to N23 billion in the first six months of initiation. As expected, this project was specifically implemented to ensure lightning-fast transaction processing and continuous system availability.
To further confirm the loud note of progress, the Group MD/CEO of Zenith Bank, Dame (Dr.) Adaora Umeoji, OON stated that “We have scaled our technology infrastructure to enable continuous availability, integration agility, and superior customer experiences,”. With this development, the bank promises 99.9% uptime and instant settlements of transactions. Therefore, holiday shoppers, travelers, and businesses can count on a resilient financial anchor during this high-stakes period.
It is also worthy of note that Zenith Bank’s commitment extends beyond backend stability; it is focused on providing customers with a frictionless digital lifestyle. The bank recently launched “EaZy by Zenith,” a new mobile wallet app designed to offer a comprehensive range of banking services for the underserved and digital-native customers alike.
In addition, the bank’s mobile app and internet banking platforms have been optimized to handle the festive surge. This focus on digital efficiency allows travelers to manage high-volume transfers, settle international bills, and access credit facilities more easily. This also ensures that customers can avoid the stress of queues in traditional banking halls during this holiday rush. For the tech-savvy youth and entrepreneurs, the recent Zenith Tech Fair 5.0 (Future Forward 5.0) unveiled AI-driven innovations that the bank is already integrating to provide more personalized and secure financial solutions.
While technological excellence is a cornerstone of Zenith’s 2025 strategy, the bank remains deeply rooted in its tradition of spreading festive joy and cheer. Through the annual “Light Up Lagos” ceremony the bank has once again transformed major cityscapes into a mesmerizing wonderland, symbolizing hope and community. During the 2025 unveiling of the ceremony, Dr. Umeoji stated that “The Light-Up Ceremony is more than just lights; it represents our commitment to our staff, customers, and communities.”
This spirit of excellence is further reflected in the bank’s customer service teams, who are specially trained to handle the unique demands of the season. This includes the intricacies of providing assistance for elderly customers navigating new digital tools or resolving cross-border transaction queries for Nigerians in diaspora. To handle delicate tasks like these, Zenith’s staff are positioned to provide attentive, professional care.
Also, Zenith Bank understands that cyber threats, as well as financial stress can peak during the holidays. To counter this, the bank maintains highly accessible support channels, including AI-driven fraud detection systems and robust endpoint protection to ensure customer funds remain safe from festive-season cyber threats.
Conclusively, it is applaudable that Zenith Bank has taken necessary steps to transform the negative side of the festive period into an opportunity to facilitate joy, peace and community. Having ruled out the elements of financial inconvenience this festive season, Zenith bank has raised a golden bar for other financial service providers.This gold standard also sets an example for other industries involved with the festivities.
Samuel Agboola is a member of the editorial team of TheScript Newspaper.
