Efforts by the Nigerian Exchange Limited to develop a focused strategy that would woo financial technology firms and millennials to the nation’s stock market may have yielded some progress with the appointment of an advisory panel on digital technology products.
Already, the Securities and Exchange Commission had in December 2022, approved the rules for listing on the NGX technology board to encourage investments in indigenous technologically inclined companies and others across Africa and provide greater visibility to these companies. There has been a call for the NGX to attract Fintechs to the stock market and leverage their fund-raising capability to boost liquidity. Despite years of stability of the NGX, many Nigerian youths have continued to diversify and hedge their investment portfolios through virtual currencies, online bets and international stocks with no interest in short term instruments.
From 2014 to 2020, for instance, fintechs raised about $600 million in funding, attracting 25 per cent of the $491.6 million raised by African tech startups in 2019 alone – second only to Kenya, which attracted $149 million.