Taking your ambitions global

Because tomorrow’s future begins today

In this exclusive interview, Stephen A. Agbeyegbe, Chief Operating Officer of Bank of Nevis International Ltd. (BONI) explains how they are helping clients mitigate future financial challenges, embrace technology and the new pathways for regional and African-Caribbean trade.

What is BONI?

Stephen: Bank of Nevis International Ltd. (BONI) provides private banking and holistic wealth and portfolio management to clients from all over the world. We provide a highly personal service and have a truly global approach. From the beautiful Caribbean island of Nevis, we offer clients a global footprint by acting as an independent financial gateway connected to markets, be they in New York, London, Paris, Singapore, Hong Kong or Sydney, whilst maintaining our traditional gateway to the wider Caribbean, North and South America and the Continent of Africa. As a result, we are ideally suited to help our clients achieve their global ambitions, safeguard their future, and meet their exacting needs in an increasingly digital and financially inclusive world.

 

Who are your clients and what do you do for them?

Stephen: Our clients are diverse and come from all walks of life and all parts of the world. What they have in common is their ambition. Our clients in sub-Saharan Africa, like our clients everywhere, want to take their ambitions global. We work closely with them to tailor their financial needs to deliver long-term, high-yield sustainable returns so they can build a lasting legacy. We are proud of our strong repeat client base which is the result of our team’s human, inclusive and diverse approach at every level. Whatever your story, and wherever you’re headed next, we want to be a part of it.

 

What are you doing to help your clients meet the challenges of the future?

Stephen: The unbanked and the underbanked outnumber those to whom banking was traditionally available to. Banking is no longer a brick and mortar proposition, and the challenge today is creating efficiencies on a day-to-day basis and offering technology products to a digitally savvy and digitally nomadic global customer pool. A world without borders. BONI is expanding its footprint in the digital space by recognizing the need to have technology partners that offer efficiency, coverage, and price transparency. Our partnerships with, Singapore-based, global payments giant, Thunes and global giant, Mastercard do exactly that. Through these fintech alliances our customers can send international payments anywhere in the world in a real-time, cost efficient way. Transfers can be made to businesses and individuals using their bank accounts, mobile wallets, cards, and cash agents, in more than 100 markets and over 60 currencies covering 90% of the world’s population. 

Our Fintech drive underpins and supports the ambitions of our customers all around the world.

 

In addition, we are working to create new pathways for regional and African-Caribbean trade through a new strategic relationship with the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank). By leveraging the historical Caribbean links to Africa, we can foster and support trade, financial services, and financing to provide foreign direct investment in key sectors of both African and Caribbean economy. In doing so, creating high quality new job opportunities for young people and better financing outcomes to impact the lives of the Caribbean’s 80 million people. In January 2023, BONI was proud to be at the forefront of an Afreximbank initiative that saw it approve US$1.5 billion in funding for member states of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

 

In 2021, BONI acquired a strategic stake in Zambia’s Investrust Bank. Investrust has national footprint in Zambia, a country of close to 20 million people and which sits at the centre of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) with a total population of 380 million. Through Investrust, we see a significant pipeline of commercial activity and intend to layer over the same with technology to support and underpin opportunities in Africa where there is space for infrastructure and essential services, such as healthcare, education, agrarian and aggro-related businesses, mining, oil and gas, retail and transport, to be completely reformed through flexible and meaningful capital investment. To take our vision forward, under a policy of supporting economic champions, we intend to better align ourselves to the mining sector in Zambia and wider Africa in particular. The mining sector in Africa could not be better positioned to support the future of global economic growth. Africa has abundant reserves of minerals, essential for the green energy transition and new battery technologies, and we are ready to support expansion in this sector.

 

What’s next for BONI? Where is the private banking and wealth management sector headed next?

Stephen: Wealth management is global, by that we mean a wealth management product is needed in the Far East, in Africa, in South America and is not just the preserve of traditional actors in Europe, North America, United Kingdom to name a few. More than anything, the past ten to fifteen years has seen new younger demographic whose wealth is apparent and yet whose deployment touches on the creation of perhaps a new or newer world order. Banking is undergoing unprecedented disruption. New business models are being invented. New currencies are being introduced. New channels to market are being opened. All this makes the present an exciting time for our industry.

For more information about BONI and its services, please visit www.boniltd.com or email info@boniltd.com