By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The buying and selling of bonds issued by the federal government of Nigeria has been made easier by Standard Chartered Bank of Nigeria.
The lender has launched an investment solution on its mobile banking platform to allow investors trade the FGN papers with ease, marking increased automation of the treasuries market.
Tagged the Online Fixed Income Securities (FIS), the FIS offering provides clients with the option to invest in federal government bonds or treasury bills on the SC Mobile App, bringing convenience, ease and simplified monitoring of their investments.
On the SC Mobile app, clients are able to purchase FGN bonds Naira denominated bonds issued and backed by the Federal Government of Nigeria, with fixed coupon rates which are paid semi-annually.
Income earned is exempt from state and local taxes. Clients can also purchase Naira denominated treasury bills issued by the Federal Government of Nigeria which are short term securities that offer more flexibility and provide competitive yields to investors.
Speaking on the offering, Simpa Adaba, Head of Wealth Management said, “At Standard Chartered Bank, our clients remain at the centre of everything that we do, this shows clearly on how we offer products for investments, the markets where we operate and the entire process of how we deliver value to our client.
We continue to successfully partner with our clients through their life stages and in this journey, we continue to take learnings and rethink our strategies in terms of how we offer products conveniently to our clients.
“As a bank today, we are clearly focused on digital banking from a convenience perspective which makes delivering value to our clients easier, faster, secured and a lot more efficient.
“On the SC Mobile app today, clients can perform a self-risk profiling to identify their risk ratings and also invest in mutual funds, federal government bonds and treasury bills. This basically means that clients start and end your journey of subscribing to any of our investment products strictly on their mobile devices and this has changed how we deliver value and investment products to our clients.
“Standard Chartered Bank announced the launch of its Digital Bank in Nigeria in December 2019 with the SC Mobile 2.0 app.”
The digital bank offers savings accounts, current accounts, fixed deposits (with the option of joint accounts) along with lending and wealth management solutions.
For both existing and new to bank clients, various benefits to be enjoyed on the app include zero charge on all interbank transfers; zero charge on SMS notification, zero charge on ATM withdrawals, performing funds transfer without adding beneficiaries and generating a soft token for all transactions, free bank card delivery nationwide and account management and service request.
Adedapo Adesanya 
Aduragbemi Omiyale