The UBA Foundation, the corporate social responsibility arm of United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc  joined the rest of the world to celebrate African children in this year’s edition of the International Day of the African Child. June 16 every year, has been set aside by the United Nations as the International Day of the African Child to celebrate children in Africa as well as recognise the courage of students who marched for their rights to better education in Soweto South Africa. The bank explained in a statement that as an institution that cares about the education and welfare of the African child, through its Foundation it marks the all-important event annually. It revealed that due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the resultant lockdown on educational institutions, UBA Foundation was not able to visit schools and community centres as is its usual practice. However, the Foundation held activities online, where students of secondary schools were afforded the opportunity to watch and listen to virtual mentoring and reading sessions. During the virtual session, the Managing Director, UBA Foundation, Bola Atta, spoke to the students on various issues, ranging from financial literacy and the importance of imbibing good reading culture to nation building. She also explained why UBA Foundation centres on three key pillars of Education, Empowerment and Environment, adding that the bank through its foundation, recognises the huge role that education and indeed a good reading culture has to play in the lives of the youth. She said, “These days school children barely make out time to read and are easily distracted by the presence of electronic social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others; and to curb this declining culture of reading across the continent, UBA Foundation came up with the ‘Read Africa’ project, designed to resuscitate the reading culture amongst our youths across the African continent. Also The United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc’s recently upgraded mobile banking app has continued to attract commendation. According to a report, over the past few weeks following the upgrade, social media sites including twitter, Instagram and even Facebook have been agog with excellent comments about the ambience, functionality and versatility of UBA’s revamped mobile app. The latest of such glowing reviews came last weekend, from a former Minister of Aviation, Mr. Osita Chidoka, who on his social media handles, gave kudos to the bank for introducing lots of exciting and interactive features to aid banking, while allowing customers to perform unlimited transactions from the comfort of their mobile phones. Chidoka, a former Corps Marshal and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Road Safety Corps, pointed out that the bank put into play its experience as an institution with several decades of operations as well as modern technology to come up with a revamped app worthy of emulation by other financial institutions some of which he mentioned in his post. “UBA, surprised me with a massive improvement on their app. I used to consider them the sleeping giant of Nigerian banking. I thought they had great brand equity and name recognition. “UBA combined the savvy feel of a new generation bank with the history of a legacy bank. As I opened their mobile app today, I couldn’t help but give them a high five. The app is beautiful, user interface is great, navigation is seamless and the need to go to a branch is reduced for small users like us.” While urging other banks to borrow a leaf from UBA’s move, Chidoka continued, “As a customer, I have always challenged the banks on their slow adaptation to change and weak emphasis on improving customer experience. I pray UBA pushes forward in this direction and continues to surpass themselves. Sooner than later disruptive online banks will change the face of banking in Nigeria, hence the need for constant innovation by the industry.