Nova: From Merchant to National Commercial Banking

Oluchi Chibuzor

Nova Merchant Bank which recently made foray into national commercial banking, during the week officially opened its first branch in the Victoria Island area of Lagos.

The bank, formerly known as Nova Merchant Bank, had received the Central Bank of Nigeria’s approval of its final licence.

The financial institution emphasised its unwavering commitment to customer focus and delivering exceptional service. Nova pride itself as an innovative ‘PHYGITAL’ institution.

Founded in 2017, it began operations as a merchant bank in February 2018. Since then, the financial institution has helped local and international businesses thrive in the oil and gas sector, commodity and agricultural business, utility and infrastructure, fast moving consumer goods, trade services, and financial institutions and treasury, with its innovative financial solutions.

In addition, Nova provides end-to-end financial services covering corporate banking, investment banking, financial advisory, capital markets and wealth and asset management, deposit taking and trade services to public and private businesses as well as high net- worth individuals.

Its data-driven approach offers new perspectives to enable its customers win in the marketplace as the bank continuously create sustainable value for all its stakeholders and remain focused on building a legacy for future generations.

Chairman and the Founder, Nova Bank, Mr. Phillips Oduoza, said having made success as a merchant bank, customers should expect disruptive products from the latest national commercial bank.

According to him, “Our trademarked PHYGITAL experience combines a select number of strategically located physical branches with high-tech, seamless digital banking capabilities, ensuring that our customers receive the best of both worlds. This approach allows us to provide personalized, in-person service where it is most needed, while also offering the convenience and efficiency of cutting-edge digital solutions.

“More importantly, we also want to support Mr. President in the job creation, in stabilising the economy. Because with a commercial banking franchise, we will be able to reach out to so many people that we would not be able to reach. And the geographical spread is very important in job creation; branches  that you establish help you to create jobs, to employ people, they have to run those branches.”

An excited Oduoza, said the financial institution would ensure it delivers customer satisfaction and excellent service delivery. “For this time around, we want to take this success story to the retail market and the retail market has far more population than the wholesale space. So we want to take this excellent service to many more people in Nigeria because we know it’s going to make more impact, more significant impact on the economy.

“And that’s just basically what we want to do. The impact comes in various forms. One is a financial services provision. Second one is empowering the consumers, creating consumer credits. “And third one is providing them with our suite of products that have been very, very successful. Of critical importance is the ‘phydigital’ that we talked about, which is a convergence of the physical offices and the digital platforms. And it empowers customers. You do so many things, both from your office, from your house, on the go, anywhere at all. And that’s what the digital experience gives to you.”

For the Managing Director/CEO of Nova Bank, Wale Oyedeji, who expressed excitement at the launch of the branch, the bank is coming out with a customer centric model of doing business.

He revealed that in the next few months Nova would be opening branches in Ikeja, Apapa, Abuja, Port Harcourt and in other key locations in the country.

“With merchant bank we have made success and profit after profit for the last five to six. We assure our customers that the future is bright as we are coming into the market with top talents, human capital and coming with top-grade technology.

“We have invested in top notch banking software in the country and we have our shareholders who brought in capital to enable us to scale the hurdle to be today to operate as a commercial bank,” he said. According to the bank CEO, “We have been around for five years as a wholesale bank and I think we have done fairly well in that space with the way we have managed our relationships with customers at the high end.

“It’s about time we spread that to the retail SME space which our previous licence did not allow us to do. We are coming with top grade talent and human capital; we are coming with top grade technology. “You might not be aware, we invested in the highest range of the core banking software in the country today and we also have adjoining technologies to create the platforms to help us serve those customers in the retail and SME space very well while remaining entrenched in the wholesale sector of the market where we have operated over the last five years.”

The Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who was the special guest at the branch opening ceremony, commended the entrance of Nova Bank into Nigeria’s commercial banking market with the opening of its first branch office in the state.

Sanwo-Olu stressed that the country must encourage citizens that believe in investing their funds in the country by providing an enabling environment and policy for them to move forward.

He said: “When you see all of the disruption, the global challenges, when you see all of the uncertainty, all of the risk profiles that are abound almost everywhere but more importantly now in the economy. But you still see investors, shareholders that are committed in this environment, that still believe that there’s a need for them not to take their money out, we need to commend them and we need to encourage them.

“And so for us in the public sector, it’s to create that space, that policy, and an enabling environment for you to make those decisions and de-risk whatever challenges you have and be able to take it forward. So I see your vision, sitting with the vision of the federal government, and also sitting with our vision in Lagos.”

The governor, however, assured the business community that they are “excited to create an enabling business environment where shareholders, stakeholders, customers see the need for them to grow their businesses, for them to make additional investment in whatever quality that they have.”

Customers who graced the occasion that was attended by top business executives and bankers, testified to the excellent service delivery of Nova Bank.