Sterling Bank Adopts Efficient Data Destruction Method

By Benneth Oghifo

Sterling Bank Plc recently entered into partnership with Nigeria’s first electronic waste (e-waste) recycling firm, E-Terra Technologies for efficient and irreversible destruction of electronic waste in line with its sustainable banking initiatives.

E-Terra Technologies is an end-to-end e-waste collection and disposal company deploying environmentally friendly methods to dispose unwanted, end-of-life electrical and electronic equipment. The process involves pre-evaluation, pick-up, dismantling, sorting and recycling of primarily waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) at the firm’s ultramodern Material Recovery Facility (MRF) in Lagos, ensuring a convenient and effective means of disposing personal or business e-waste.

Commenting on the partnership, Yinka Oni, Chief Information Officer at Sterling Bank said one of the benefits of the partnership is the irreversible destruction of sensitive information contained in decommissioned data storage media such as hard drives and tapes.

Oni listed other benefits to include avoidance of data breach and negative consequences, business security as well as access to international best practice in environmental sustainability and receipt of an eco-friendly certificate of data destruction and compliance.

He said since the partnership is a full-service package, all items marked for destruction would be evacuated from various branches of the bank to a central location.

Oni said the bank chose E-Terra Technologies because it is the only ISO 9001 and 14001 certified electronic waste management company in Nigeria with truly world-class and eco-friendly machinery, systems and processes.

On his part, Ifeanyi Ochonogor, the Chief Executive Officer at E-Terra Technologies says the company is well positioned to deliver on Sterling Bank’s need for efficient e-waste and data destruction methods. “We have worked with clients in the Nigerian financial services sector and understand the importance of completely destroying sensitive data as experience has shown that mere deleting of the files is not enough to discard the data.”

“We are thrilled to be partners with Sterling Bank as the company is well positioned to become Nigeria’s most sustainability focused bank”, Mr. Ochonogor opined.

E-Terra recently won the 2018 Lagos State Ministry of the Environment Green Award in Environmental Inovation together with Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency’s (LASEPA) 2018 Sustainability Award (e-waste category).

Sterling Bank has also been recognised for its commitment to the sustainable implementation of the Nigerian Sustainable Banking Principles (NSBPs) through its Sterling Environmental Makeover (STEM) programme and recycling of waste at its head office in Lagos.

The bank was recently recognised for its positive contributions to environmental sustainability by Wecyclers Nigeria Limited, Nigeria’s pioneering waste recycling firm.

The recognition was done at the commemoration of Wecyclers Nigeria’s one-year anniversary.

In addition, Sterling Bank launched ReCylArt competition for young artists at the end of which one artist from each of the four designated zones in the competition wins one million naira each at the grand finale in Lagos.

Consequently, the bank unveiled the winning ReCylArt sculpture from the Lagos Zone at the Muri Okunola Park in Lagos to advocate the cause of the environment by inspiring the masses to reuse and repurpose waste in order to reduce environmental challenges.

The sculpture is an undressed identity by Dudu Emmanuel who emerged zonal finalist from Lagos Zone in the maiden edition of the competition.

“The future of Nigerian economy is in agriculture and agro-based industries, there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind. We will get it right when the government begins to adopt the right policies to position the sector for growth. Investors, on the other hand, must begin to see how viable the sector is both in the short and long terms. By supporting the sector, banks and others in the financial services sector will not only reap very good returns on their investments but also contribute to the overall economic development of the country.”