Why We Started Sumobank, How Far And What we Want to Achieve – A Letter From GT Igwe Chrisent, Sumobank CEO on June 14th 2019

Why We Started Sumobank, Now SumoTrust, How Far And What we Want to Achieve – A Letter From

Sumobank CEO, GT Igwe Chrisent,  on June 14th 2019 Alpha Date.

Wow, I can’t believe I’m 27 just like that. Time seems to be running very fast … #Smile.

It’s June 14th and it’s my birthday, Entrepreneur Platform is 2 and I’m happy to share our success story with everyone.

Today, we officially welcome our new Baby Startup (Sumobank) into the queue and happy to share our little story with you all.

This is to either Inform, Educate, inspire or lead someone out there.

How it all Started

Having been in business for 2 years and having helped over 1 million people better their lives, we are happy to say we have crossed a milestone at Entrepreneur Platform.

Over time while we do this, we noticed a common problem with our users’ business-related topic.

That problem is a problem of NOT HAVING MONEY to either start, scale or expand their businesses.

Most of these people in financial pains are within age grade of 23-42.

They had wished they saved better when they had better income flow, even those in school wants to go big.

Because of this, we decided to take a past Savings and investment survey online to see

• The current bank account conditions of our readers.
• How they have handled money in the past.
• If they have anyone who advises them about how to handle money or not.
• what people think about saving money
• who had the option of saving but couldn’t and why.
• how people actually raised money to carry out projects with respect to savings.
• who wished to have saved better.
• who wished to have invested better.
• if people are happy about their past and present savings situations.

We carried out a survey called ‘ARE YOU HAPPY WITH YOUR PAST AND CURRENT SAVINGS AND BANK ACCOUNT CONDITION’ on 275000 persons and we confirmed that 182660 (66.4%) people are not happy about their savings conditions and wished if they saved better for various reasons which includes

•        saving money to start a business
•        saving money to travel
•        saving money to pay loan
•        saving money to pay school fees
•        saving money for retirement
•        saving money for shopping
•        saving money to buy/rent a house
•        saving money to for investment
•        saving money to buy a car and so many other reasons

Also, 86.8% out of the 182660 (158548.88) unhappy people wants to start saving their money not to go broke again and taste another bitter side of life again, but then majority are lazy to visit the banks to do that as

1. Their banks don’t give them much interest in their money
2. It’s very easy for them to access and withdraw anytime they need to spend money which is the same as holding it in the first place.
3. They just can’t save money, they believed more money will come as they spend.
4. Not enough income but will save if there is an improvement, etc.

Having looked at this carefully we decided to build an automated tool that will solve the problems of the savings of our users, help people save and invest money at their own comfort, will and time.

We built SUMOBANK!

Sumo Bank is an automated platform that helps people save and invest money on the go.

YOU CAN

• Save money on Sumo Bank
• Invest money with Sumo Bank
• Monitor and reduce your expenses on Sumo Bank
• At will, you can withdraw part or all your funds from Sumobank any day anytime but know that we have only 4 FREE withdrawal date.

To discourage people from withdrawing their money and save up until target or use date is reached, we decided to add a 4.5% Penalty Fee to withdrawals made before the target is reached or making withdrawals on NON-FREE withdrawal date. We believe this Penalty Fee will discourage people from withdrawals and save more.

How we Intend Generating Revenue with Sumo Bank

Sumobank generates its revenues through asset management turnover. We invest a percentage of savings saved with us by our users every month and plough back most of the interest we get back to our users. Users on Sumobank with an investment account will earn 15% interest annually for every dime invested and not touched for a minimum of 6 months while users on Main and Mission account will earn 10% interest annually which is way higher than the average interest payouts from commercial banks.

Who Is Sumobank Meant For?

Sumo Bank is meant for everyone not younger than 16 years of age, but parents or guardians can open a Sumo Account for their children younger than the stipulated age. Sumobank is meant for

•        Active and aspiring entrepreneurs
•        Civil servants
•        Students
•        Artisans
•        Businessmen and women
•        Freelancers
•        Corps members
•        Parents

Who wants to save for various reasons ranging from

1. Having an emergency fund in their account
2. Starting a business
3. Running a project
4. Travel/Tourism
5. Shopping
6. School fees
7. Retirement
8. Hospital bills
9. Investing
10. Buying a property, etc.

The Core Brains Behind Sumobank

It’s very important to know that; Sumobank is personal finance product of Sumo Tech Global Limited, Registered with CAC with RC No: 1524989. In the future, we will definitely expand into some other things. A company coined out after radical brainstorming session at Entrepreneur Platform (www.entorm.com). An online business platform owned by GUDTALENT AND CO NIGERIA LIMITED, registered with corporate affairs commission as a limited liability company with RC Number: 1483874. Founded in 2017 and have recorded huge success in the digital publishing and business hub in Nigeria.

Sumobank idea was birthed by me;

• 1.     GT Igwe Chrisent Nnamdi – as Founder and CEO while in a phone conversation with;

 

• 2.     Ossi Samuel Okorie – Co-founder and COO

 

Over the requests, complains and proposals from our blog readers who kept pressuring most about funds and loan for their businesses… The full story will be for another day. But then,

• 3.     Igwe Obumneme Samuel – Co-founder was introduced on the table and later on

 

• 4.     Idoko Nickolas Chinazom – Chief Technical Officer (CTO) to lead the technical and development team.

 

Future Plans of Sumobank

We plan on becoming the major key player in saving the $2.2 trillion savings market. We have built a tool we believe our users will connect with emotionally so as to become better savers.

Because we want people to save and invest for a purpose, Sumobank within the next 5 years of operation (by 2024) will be employing every possible strategy that will help 1 million Nigerians alone and millions across other countries raise and build their own businesses using www.entorm.com and www.sumobank.ng as business and enterprise learning hub and personal financing and management tool respectively.

Our tools and products will speak for itself positively on the long run and eventually become one of the strongest banking pillars in the African Fintech industry.

Our Business Model to Creating Impact Using Sumo Bank And Entrepreneur Platform

Our model at Sumobank and Entrepreneur Platform is tailored to raising over 1 million entrepreneurs who are passionate and fighting hard to start and grow their own successful businesses. On this, we have actionable business and growth model that will help us to achieve this goal.

See below;

1. Sign up on www.sumobank.ng
2. Add a debit card into your account.
3. Start saving for any purpose which you intend to (like business, investment, school, shopping, travel, retirement reasons) until you reach your goals.
4. Let us know your reasons for saving.
5. Pick various purpose recommendations from Entrepreneur Platform (www.entorm.com). Example. Pick any business that you can start based on the amount raised from your savings after considering your location, activities and confirming the feasibility of succeeding in that business.
6. Get free training materials (Articles, Audio podcasts and Videos) and read through them. (Email Support available too).
7. Join Our African Entrepreneurs Forum and meet other Entrepreneurs, project executors, coaches, etc and learn more.
8. Start your savings intent (business, investment, travel, etc) following the best success tips given on step 5 until success.
9. Tell your success story to the world and how Sumobank and Entrepreneur Platform was part of it.

As at the time of writing this, this model is still a prototype and still under development, so, we will be making major updates through 2019 and 2020. It takes time to put all these things together and we have limited resources and funding available.

WE ALSO HAVE EXPERTS IN VARIOUS FIELDS THAT WILL OFFER YOU PREMIUM CONSULTING SERVICES, BUSINESS PLANS, AGENT SERVICES, MARKETING CAMPAIGNS TO ENSURE YOU MEET YOUR GOALS. Don’t worry, they are affordable and you can choose based on your budget.

How You Can Be Part Of This Vision

There are two ways to support this movement;

1. Sign up as a user/customer with us at www.sumotrust.com and become an active saver to benefit from our roadmap
2. Reach out to us at contact@sumotrust.com if you believe in the cause and invest with us as either Angel Investor or Venture Capitalist. We are currently looking at raising $1 Million in funding to enable us scale faster. This idea of raising funds have not been made officially by us, but I’m adding it here since its work we’re open for at the moment and time of writing this and will still move on to build for Africa even if it doesn’t come. If

Thank you for reading and being part of us and the journey so far. I must say it’s been an amazing walk all these years.

Until next time, let me take a glass of wine for now, it’s my birthday.