What the Onbourd Score really measures
The Onbourd Score rates every dividend-paying NGX stock from 0 to 10. Here's exactly how we build it — and why a recent refinement pushed several high-yield names, VFD Group among them, off the top of the table.
Every dividend investor eventually asks the same question: of the 150-plus companies listed on the Nigerian Exchange, which are the genuinely dependable payers — and which merely look generous? The Onbourd Score exists to answer that at a glance. It is a rating from 0 to 10 that we compute for every dividend-paying NGX stock, and it powers the rankings you see on the Explore screen and across our daily insights.
Crucially, the score is not a measure of who paid the most naira last year. A large one-off payout can flatter a company that is quietly winding its dividend down. What long-term investors actually want is a payer that is generous, reliable, and improving — and that is precisely what the score is engineered to reward.
The four things we measure
The score combines four factors, and we multiply them together rather than average them. That distinction matters: a company has to do well on all four to score highly. A serious weakness in any one — a dividend cut, a patchy history — pulls the entire result down, exactly as it should.
A worked example: VFD Group
The clearest way to see the score at work is a real one. On paper, VFD Group (VFDGROUP) looked like one of the most generous dividend stocks on the exchange, with a headline average yield above 14%. Its recent payment history, however, tells a more cautious story.
In 2025 the company paid ₦2.50 per share. In 2026 it paid just ₦0.49 in total — a ₦0.25 final followed by a ₦0.24 interim, a payout 80% smaller year on year. It kept paying, so its consistency score stayed perfect, but its real current yield is closer to 4.6%, not the 14% the historical average implied. Under the refined formula the growth penalty does the rest, and the score falls from 9.45 to 0.93.
The same refinement lifted steadier names in the other direction. Access Holdings (ACCESSCORP), which has paid every year and grown its dividend, rose to the top of the dividend rankings — exactly where a consistent, improving payer belongs.
We recently sharpened the formula
Earlier versions of the score ranked stocks on their average historical yield and did not account for dividend cuts at all. That produced the very anomaly above: a company that had slashed its payout by 80% still sat at the top of the table on the strength of a yield it no longer paid.
In September 2026 we made two deliberate changes. First, the score now ranks on the current, run-rate yield rather than a multi-year average. Second, we introduced a growth factor that rewards a rising dividend and penalises a cut. When the update went live, a number of high-yield names surrendered their top positions overnight — VFD Group among them — while proven, growing payers moved up. The table became a far more honest reflection of dividend quality.
A high yield alone does not make a great dividend stock. Consistency and direction matter just as much — and the score now says so.
Our methodology is never finished
Markets evolve, companies change their payout policies, and no single formula is ever the last word. We review the Onbourd Score regularly and refine it whenever the data shows we can do better, as this update demonstrates. When we make a material change, our aim is always the same: a ranking our users can trust to reward genuine, durable dividend quality — not a number that flatters the past.