Nova Bank Will Make Great Impact – Oduoza

Phillips Oduoza, chairman of Nova Bank Plc, has said that the new commercial bank is poised to create jobs and make a great impact.

Oduoza who spoke at the launching of Nova Bank’s first branch as a national commercial bank in Lagos, said that the bank’s foray into commercial banking and upgrade to National Banking Licence were part of a long-term goal to make an impact.

He said, “We are not here just to maximise profit, but we are here as Nova to have the greatest impact in the society. And this is one of the reasons why we decided to extend to commercial banking business.

“We have been very, very successful, as testified by our customers in the wholesale banking space. And we felt it is just necessary to extend the service to the retail end of the market, which is where you will have the largest population of banking customers.

“Therefore, we want to transfer that success story to the retail end of the market. We want to impact the Nigerian economy as a whole. We want to assist in job creation, stability of the country, which Mr President has been working on. So, by going commercial, it gives us a platform for more job creation in the country.”

Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who performed the ribbon cutting for the inauguration of the first branch, commended the board and management of Nova Bank for taking the decision to invest more into commercial banking not minding the various challenges and uncertainties in the economy.

He said, “We need to encourage them; we need to stay in touch with them because they have a choice.

“They could as well have remained as a nimble wholesale bank or as a merchant bank as a matter. But they felt they need to take it further, and this means they need to dip their hands into their pockets and bring additional resources that would make it possible for them to be able to compete on a larger scale.”