Customer Showcase — WallX.co
In this edition, we interview Richmond Ogigai, Co-Founder of WallX.co — a digital bank that simplifies access to various financial and lifestyle services. He speaks to us about the company and its future.
Tell us about WallX and what makes you different from your competitors?
WallX provides businesses and individuals an easy, safe, and transparent way of organizing and automating any form of monetary contribution. Local businesses using our platform, can manage sales transactions, process payrolls, retain new/existing customers, issue ePOS slips, and utilize other lifestyle services.
What makes us different from other great businesses, is the highly skilled and experienced team we have put together to help us drive our vision to become a lifestyle-focused digital bank.
What are the major challenges of WallX regarding identity in Nigeria and what role would you say digital identity plays in the innovation happening in your sector?
Even though we have data scattered everywhere, identity verification is an issue in Nigeria. The advent of digital identity has helped businesses like ours compete globally and comply with best practices.
The biggest challenge is KYC — knowing “who we are engaging with on the other side” is crucial to what we (can) do and often difficult to determine. VerifyMe helps us address this by providing access to credible, harmonized data. And that, in turn, enables us to innovate.
How does VerifyMe come in as your identity verification partner?
VerifyMe provides us with a centre point to access data that helps identify every user that comes on our platform. This is a major requirement for any financial services driven solution. With VerifyMe, we can perform deep KYC for all our users. We don’t have to integrate with several national systems as VerifyMe serves as our one-stop.
What will you say has been the highlight of your career at WallX?
For me, envisioning the idea was one thing and going through the tough process of making it a functional reality was another. It required a lot of emotional intelligence to get people to believe in the dream. This has constantly defined moments in my career.
How do you see the company changing in two years?
We expect to have evolved into something huge. We want to be a leading enabler of financial lifestyle products. We are constantly seeing gaps in the financially excluded segment of the pyramid (i.e. the unbanked). We aim to drive lifestyle products/services that will get these people from the informal to the formal economy without changing their way of living.
If you could change something about doing business in Nigeria, what would that be?
I’d like to create a “Meeting of Minds” for policies and regulations in the FSI and other industries. Regulators need to create flexible policies that will enable all classes of businesses to survive on arrival. I understand the need for caution; however, innovation doesn’t have to be stifled and investors can be confident about doing business in Nigeria.
