By Dipo Olowookere
One of the goals the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited hopes to achieve in 2022 is to improve retail investor participation in the market by designing products that will meet their needs.
The CEO of the bourse, Mr Temi Popoola, while speaking recently at an event in Lagos, stated that the “NGX will intensify efforts aimed at driving retail expansion and digital transformation targeted at building end-to-end digital platforms and leveraging partnerships with market intermediaries to enhance the distribution of capital market products and services. Ultimately, these partnerships will support financial inclusion initiatives and improve retail investor’s coverage.”
He further disclosed that this year, the management will also focus “on key initiatives aimed at growing the capital market for the benefit of all key stakeholders, maximizing our business transformation initiatives to ensure that our market is on a trajectory towards improving retail participation, technology adoption, innovation competence and building a very robust marketplace for capital products and services.”
“We will also prioritize our efforts to evolve the capital market ecosystem to enable capital formation for technology-driven companies, thereby establishing wealth accretion opportunities for emerging sectors such as fintech” and Tech start-ups.
“Enhancing policy advocacy to support the creation of a market structure is critical to achieving these aspirations and we will further our stakeholder engagement to create a market wherein NGX is strategically positioned in the capital flow value chain to lead inclusive policy change in critical market-related issues including but not limited to policy advocacy, regulatory and stakeholder engagements as well as collaborations,” he added.
Mr Popoola informed participants of the event that the exchange was committed to providing a reliable, efficient and adaptable exchange hub in Africa for investors and businesses, to save and to access capital.
“Leveraging our investments in business innovation, our diversified range of products and services, and our robust platform for engagement, we are well on our way to achieving our aspiration to be Africa’s preferred exchange hub.
“This is evidenced by a number of advances that we have recently implemented including the launch of the NGX Exchange Traded Derivatives Market, which saw the listing of two Equity Index Futures Contracts, NGX 30 Index Futures and NGX Pension Index Futures, with more securities to be added in the future,” he said.
Adedapo Adesanya