Entertainment & SocietyDigital Banking App, V Bank Set to Transform Into Actual Bank

Digital Banking App, V Bank Set to Transform Into Actual Bank

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June 06, (THEWILL) – Forty-three year-old Nonso Okpala has proved that by sheer dint of hard work a youth can succeed in a legitimate endeavour instead of resorting to fraud in its various forms.

A former staff member of accounting giant, KPMG and later HEIRS Holdings, Nonso, alongside his friends, floated VFD Bank while still an employee in 2009. The bank was meant to be a side hustle at first and the dream was for it to scale from being a micro lender into a microfinance bank and then a full scale bank. After raising the initial N2.5 million in seed investment, he acquired 20 per cent of the company.

In 2015, he and his friends floated Everdon Bureau de Change, a retail foreign exchange business and in the same year, Central Bank of Nigeria issued him a licence to transform VFD into a Microfinance bank. Later that same year, he resigned his job at HEIRS Holdings to focus full time as the Chief Finance Officer of the Microfinance bank.

From that humble beginning in 2009, the two businesses started by Nonso and his friends have turned into a full-grown indigenous conglomerate known as the VFD Group. From a seed capital of N2.5 million about 13 years ago and shares priced at N2 per share during the company’s initial capital raise, VFD Group Plc has grown and is currently priced at N368 per share in the Nigerian capital market.

The company reportedly has a market worth of N32 billion and investments in over 40 companies across many sectors of the economy. It is also listed on NASD.

VFD Group further moved a notch higher to become what is now referred to as an industry-agnostic proprietary investment company, that is, a business that continues to seek profitable investment across different investment options and businesses, regardless of the industry.

The most prominent of the companies under the group is popularly known as Vbank, a digital banking application. The group’s tentacles spread across real estate, a mortgage banking, hospitality, Piggyvest, a very secure online savings platform that makes saving possible by combining discipline plus flexibility to make you grow your savings etc, across Lagos and Abuja. With total assets hitting N81.68 billion and an approved dividend of N1.37 billion to shareholders, representing 10.79 per share, the group decided it was about time to transform their digital bank to an actual bank. It has since applied to the CBN for a national banking licence.

Nonso’s story is one of resilience, pushing the envelope, believing that anything you put your mind to is possible and refusing to settle for less, despite transacting in a dysfunctional environment like Nigeria, where the odds are against one in most cases and most people prefer to take the short and often devastating cut.

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