One of the foremost new generation banks, Fidelity Bank Plc has announced its resolve to close at 2pm to its customers daily starting from Friday, March 27, 2020, to Friday, April 3, 2020, to curb the spread of CORONA VIRUS (COVID-19).

This is coming hours after a Fidelity staff who returned from a holiday in the United Kingdom tested positive for Coronavirus.

In a statement released on Tuesday, the bank said the individual has embarked on self-isolation upon his arrival in the country in line with its policy that mandates staff/family members who have traveled overseas in recent time to self isolate for 14 days and test for the virus before returning to work.

“Fidelity Bank mandates staff or immediate family member(s) who travel out the country to self-isolate for two weeks and obtain medical clearance before returning to work as part of our COVID-19 preventive and precautionary measures,” the statement signed by Charles Aigbe, the bank’s divisional head for brand and communications, read.

“This process was activated and strictly adhered to by one of our staff members who returned from holidays in the United Kingdom.”

“He was in self-isolation and underwent testing in line with the bank’s policy. The test results returned positive at the weekend and we quickly arranged for him to be moved to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), where he is currently being attended to by health officials.”

According to the bank, two other members of staff who received gifts from the individual have also been made to self-isolate and the office where they work has been temporarily closed.

The bank said no customers were identified in the contact tracing that was carried out.

Also, the bank said it has shut down its business office at the federal secretariat in Abuja and advised all staff/vendors to self-isolate and go for testing in line with its policy on COVID-19, on account of possible exposure of a vendor staff.

The bank said it is carrying out other measures like reducing the number of staff expected to report physically at work and number of customers allowed at a time in the banking hall to a maximum of five to curb the spread of the virus.

Moving on, in a message sent to its customers via email and text messages, the management said it is closing down earlier for precaution.

“Please be informed that all our branches will now close at 2.00 pm daily from Friday, March 27, 2020, to Friday, April 3, 2020, as part of our precautionary measures to curb the spread of CORONA VIRUS.”

“The bank will use the period to observe the situation in the best interest of our stakeholders.”

“As Always, our digital channels are available 24/7. Please make use of them for your transactions.
We thank you for your continued patronage.”