Ghana, Nairobi stock markets get new technology platform

Technology company, SecondSTAX, has successfully linked the Ghanaian and Kenyan stock markets, allowing corporations to trade on both entities with ease.

The ground-breaking platform is the first-of-its kind and has the potential to significantly impact trading, injecting more capital into the market. The Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE) and the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) are among Africa’s most active, but the soloed nature of these exchanges and insufficient data has led to limited access to capital.

Through this initiative, licensed broker-dealers, asset managers, large commercial banks and other institutional investors from across the continent will find it easier to invest into Ghana and Kenya’s premier exchanges via SecondSTAX’s transparent, easy-to-use, cloud-based portal.

Investors will also be able to invest in their native currencies, making a wider range of assets and opportunities available to more Africans and creating an efficient route to increased wealth on the continent.

CEO and co-founder of SecondSTAX, Eugene Tawiah stated that it is “building tools for investment firms to enable and enhance intra-Africa capital and investment flows, reducing the siloed state of African stock and bond markets.”

“SecondSTAX provides investment firms with an easy-to-use and efficient route for wealth in Africa and global capital to fund investments in a wider range of African countries.”

Eugene Tawiah, further indicated that they foresee a solution that will allow all the capital currently restricted to individual markets to flow across the continent.

“We are doing this in Africa for Africans across the continent, and these partnerships with the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) and the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) are the first steps in our journey.”

Bigger Market for Africa

NSE Chief Executive Officer Geoffrey Odundo, on his part, said, “These linkages are good as they will create a bigger market in Africa and will allow cross-border trading. Investors in Ghana who want to trade in Kenya will have a straight-through process.”

Breaking down how SecondSTAX works, Tawiah noted one to think of his company’s platform as a layer in a series of concentric circles. The first and second circles consist of institutional investors from developed markets and those in Africa, respectively, who are interested in investing in various stocks and bonds available on African exchanges. SecondSTAX is the third circle and acts as a gateway to the fourth circle, the exchanges.

It can be recalled that the fintech company, SecondSTAX (Secondary Securities Trading and Aggregation eXchange), recently launched a platform, which will allow broker-dealers, asset managers, pension funds, and institutional investors to access markets outside their own country.

Mr. Tawiah, meanwhile, highlighted his ambitious journey to the realization of SecondSTAX dreams. He mentioned that in 2018, a landmark event tilted his journey into building SecondSTAX. That was the year MTN Ghana, a local telecom operator, went public in the West African country after raising about $237 million.

SecondSTAX provides access to debt and equity securities across multiple African bonds and stock exchanges.