From Adanna Nnamani, Abuja
Mr. Emmanuel Okwara, the Country Manager of Equiti, a pioneer world-class financial services broker that provides the platform for individuals, institutions, and companies to trade in the global financial market, says his firm targets to train 3 million Nigerians into the FinTech literacy net by 2025.
The multi-award-winning company has already hoisted its flag in the global market where it trades in assets in currencies like EUR, USD, GBP, JPY and more. It is also involved in spot metals like gold, silver, platinum, crude oil, stocks and indices, as well as agricultural products.
In this interview, Okwara, discusses the peculiarities of the Nigerian financial industry, the benefits of online trading, moves by the company to revolutionize the country’s FinTech space as well as plans and strategies to get 3 million Nigerians into Financial literacy, among other matters.
For those who don’t know about Equiti, what service do you offer? What is your mission in Nigeria?
Okay, firstly, Equiti is a pioneering world class and multi-award winning FinTech company that provides the platform for people to trade in the global financial markets. The global financial market comprises so many assets ranging from currencies, stocks, the Euros, the UK and the US stocks and precious metals like gold, commodities, and agricultural products like cotton. The company also trades in cryptocurrencies. So we have been doing this for 13 years. But in Nigeria, we started a business on the 2nd of August 2021. So we’re just barely seven months old.
What is your mission in Nigeria?
Our mission is just to revolutionize the industry. Also, when it comes to online trading, we want to provide education for people to learn how to trade profitably. To be frank, the word Forex has been bastardized, especially in Nigeria, but we’re here to change the narratives. Apart from training people to trade, we are also providing a platform whereby we have a lot of software that can help make trading easy and smart. We are providing financial literacy, because we’ve come to discover that it is quite unfortunate that despite our population, Kenya has more percentage when it comes to financial literacy than Nigeria. So, we want to change the narrative. We want to do a lot of financial literacy programmes that are not just talking about online trading.
Let’s talk about finance. Let’s talk about money. How can people make money legally?
We have started this in East Africa. The CEO Africa, Brian Myers, has been doing this and we hope to extend it and be more aggressive in Nigeria. Our plan is to educate over 3 million Nigerians on or before 2025 via this financial literacy revolution.
In which other countries do you operate?
In Africa, we started our business operation in Kenya, three years ago. In fact, next month is going to make the Kenyan business four years. We are the first to secure a license from the capital market authorities in Kenya. Apart from the office in Nairobi, we have other offices in Kenya, and now we are in Nigeria. We also hope to expand by opening offices in Lagos and Port Harcourt. We intend to have satellite offices in other commercial cities in Nigeria. And we’re also hoping to have operations in South Africa, Cameroon, Ghana, and other African countries. Aside Africa, we have a presence in the UK, and we have the FCA license to do business in the UK. We also have an office in Jordan, that’s in the Middle East where we have a license, and we have an office in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE). We just secured one of the biggest licenses to do business two weeks ago. We are still celebrating it, and for your information, the biggest train station in Dubai has been renamed Equiti station. Aside from that, we have a presence in America, Florida to be precise. We have presence in the Asian continent. And then, we are also looking at opening offices In other countries of the world .
What attracted you to do business in Nigeria?
What attracted us here is the population, the appetites, and the energy for business because I’ve come to realize that our strength lies in our population. We discovered that Nigerians have a huge appetite to participate in the financial market. When you talk about finance and you talk about the ranking in the world, you see a lot of Nigerians that participate. So, we felt that coming to Nigeria would be a good level playing ground. Another thing that made us come here is because we have a lot of brokers in Nigeria and to be honest, we felt that there’s a gap. People need to understand how to trade profitably. People need to understand that this trading can be a skill and you can learn it and do it yourself. You know, you mustn’t give somebody your money to trade for you, but rather do it yourself. So that’s why we are coming up with financial literacy. In fact , we have training in the office both online and offline every day, and it is free. It is open to everybody from 18 years and above. We want to educate Nigerians and we want to grow this industry. We want to change the narrative because the government cannot do everything for us. That is the truth. In fact, our President said that there is no more job. If you look at it technically it might be true, you might feel offended. But let’s be honest, that is the truth. Inflation rates are going up and the economy is not really doing well. We need the private sector to come in with a lot of programmes to help people and this is financial empowerment is the best form of empowerment. And therefore, we made the training free. We have software on the platform that will help you trade the financial markets. This is the largest market in the world.
What assets can you trade via Equiti?
Okay, with Equiti, you can trade different financial assets. Let me break it down. You can trade currencies like the Euro against the United States dollars. You can trade the Turkish Lira; you can trade the great British pounds. Now let me break it down for the layman. When we talk about forex, people think it is a very big grammar. It is the buying and selling of currencies in a globally decentralized market. You get to trade different currencies of the world like the Turkish lira, Chinese yuan, Japanese yen etc. What we do is to teach you to know how and when to buy and when to sell. And the reason why this business is good is because for instance if I buy shares from any company, I pray it doesn’t go down. If it goes down, I lose. But in forex, whether it’s going up or going down so long as I buy or sell at the right time, I make profits. Apart from trading currencies you can trade precious metals like gold and silver in the market. You can also trade crude oil. Right now, everybody knows the price of oil is going up based on the crisis between Russia and Ukraine. You can take advantage of that and also make profit. All the way to last week oil prices were going up and people were buying in the markets making huge profits. You can also trade commodities agricultural products like grains, cotton, rice, coffee, cocoa, you can trade all these on the platform. You can also trade stocks. A lot of us chat on Facebook, you can trade Facebook stocks, I know that for instance, Tesla is going up, Zoom is going up Alibaba or Amazon is going up. You can trade those shares on the platform and make profit. All these are different assets that can be traded on the platform that we have provided. We are providing the platform for you to trade all these, and therefore people need to understand this is the largest financial market. Every day, $7.3 trillion trading volume is made in the forex market. And this money goes into the pockets of people.
In case I am interested in starting trading with Equiti, what should I do?
Very simple. We have a website. You can just go to www.equiti.com/africa, you to open a live account. We ask for a valid government issued ID just for verification. And once the account is approved, you will be assigned to an account Support manager. The account support manager is to assist you get active. If you are already a trader, he assists you and takes you through to tell you what to do. If you are not a trader, you’re a beginner and you want to learn. You can even schedule if you want the training online or offline. It takes place every day. If you are in Abuja and you have the chance to come to the office we have our training, 2pm to 4pm in the office. I will show you around. So, we are very accessible. It’s a global broker with a local presence.
How much do I need to start?
On our platform, you can start trading with $5. That’s like 2,500 naira, but I will not advise you to start with that. I would advise you to start bigger, like with $100. If you’re a beginner, you want to learn how to trade. If you fund that $100, I will not advise you to start trading because you don’t know what to trade. You will lose the money. You only need to fund to secure the 30% bonus that we are giving. We are giving a 30% bonus to everyone. It is a welcome bonus. Then, for the fact that you are a beginner we will give you a demonstration account, a practice account is credited with $10,000. It’s not real money. It is for you to practice. So, it is that money that we use to show you when and how to buy and sell in a global market. That when you’re done learning you can now go to the life account and start trading and making money profitably and we also have software that can help you do this.
What makes you different from other brokers that exist in Nigeria?
I think the brand is number one. It is a global brand that has been in existence for years, Equiti is a very big brand that is known. And the leadership is one of the pioneer leaderships of different brokers we have seen here today. Another thing you need to understand is the platform. The platform is so unique. Our servers are one of the fastest in the world. You know, there can’t be any delay. And this is a non-dealing desk and the good thing about our platform is that we have a lot of products. There is what we call a research terminal and smart report that analyzes trades for you. Instead of you doing the analysis, it does analysis for you. It tells you when to enter and when to leave. We have it on the platform. We have the latest version of the trading platform called the MetaTrader five. Now, we have something we launched recently. It’s called a signal center. It is like a robot that helps you trade, apart from this, we have sophisticated software that frankly I don’t think any broker in Nigeria currently has right now. And what makes us unique also is our people. I’m not spectacular about the fact that it is an international company, white people should assist our company. We can afford to do that but we want Nigerians to be your account managers. So, you are speaking with a Nigerian. We know your problem. So, the customer service customer support officer is Nigerian, might even be from your tribe, speak your language. So we understand what you want and we know how to solve the problem for you and apart from that our verification process is the fastest. Our verification process takes 20mins max. We get your account verified. And I can tell you anywhere we have business we have the license to operate. And why we’ve got an office is that it is an online business that we can afford to do online. I’ve been in the industry for nine years. Most of my colleagues have also been in industry for quite a long time. So I think we have what it takes to give you the support you need.
How can I know that my money is safe as a prospective trader?
0.What I tell people is that for you to do business with any broker, look at their regulation. Forex is currently not regulated in Nigeria. We are actually praying that that happens. But let’s look at what is the integrity of the company. Google is our friend. Google can tell me some things about the company. What regulations we have. We have over six different licenses all over the world to operate with. We have the FCA license from the UK. We have the Seychelles license to operate with and we have the capital market authority from Kenya. We have a license from Jordan . We just got the SCA license in the United Arab Emirates. We are one of the few brokers that have a license to do business in the US , in the US we have an office in Florida. And then we have an office in Armenia, and we have a license from the Central Bank of Armenia. So, this alone has helped make us strong actors that can boost and give confidence for clients to know that we are not here to run away, we are here to stay, and we’ve been in business for years. And apart from that, you can check the platform and Google and research about us. We are not an investment company. We don’t trade for people. We provide a platform for you to trade, and we teach you what to do. So, the money is in your trading account, and we don’t have access to your account because the password and login data is sent to you, not to us. So, you have 100% access to the platform to see whatever happens. You can make your withdrawals anytime you want.
What are the challenges you face so far doing business in the country?
We want people to learn how to trade. And we are doing this for free. So, we need more access. We need more approval. We feel we need more help from the government to have this partnership to reach more Nigerians. This is a very big country. We need the media. We need you out there. Instead of a lot of negative things thriving, why not something positive thrive. We need the media to come in and help us do this because what’s in the minds of Nigeria is that forex it’s a scam. Based on what has happened. We know what happened this year. But now this is a licensed broker that is not saying bring your money. No. We are saying just come and sit down. Learn. Let us show you. Are you not tired of giving somebody your money and the person runs away? You have control of your money; you have access to your money. We have affiliations with Nigerian banks that you are not giving money to us. You are only funding that account.
So, we need this message to go out, for more Nigerians to know that Forex is not really a scam.
So, do you have any advice for the government on how to boost the FinTech business?
I think they should regulate the forex business in Nigeria. I think it should be regulated because the reason why we’re hearing a lot of stories is because it’s not regulated, so anything comes and goes. There are a lot of bucket shops out there. Throwing money around, they take people’s money and disappear. So, if this business is regulated, it will curb all this madness in Nigeria. Imagine Kenya and East African countries have regulatory bodies that regulate the business. So, if Kenya can do that, that has a Capital Market Authority, Nigeria can also do the same. We as a broker, we mean well for Nigerians, and we are willing to do business. So, we want them to regulate it. Regulation should come to sieve out the chaff from the grains. It makes business also work well. Another piece of advice also, I think it is high time the government comes in and know where to channel its energy. They know that they cannot provide jobs now. If you cannot provide jobs now, look for those sectors or those organizations that have the capacity to help you grow. Work with them to grow and increase employment or reduce unemployment. Channel your resources to those areas. We’re not telling you to give us money, no, we are already a big company, but give us the support we need. Get the news out there and let people come and get trained.
I think that the government owned televisions should also help us in subsidizing the rates for us to come to the stations and speak about online trading.