Revenues and profit of Nairobi Securities Exchange dwindled in 2015 as volume of transactions fell due to newly introduced 10% tax on trade and rising interest rates which drove investors toward products with fixed returns.

In this context, the firm plans to diversify its sources of revenues and is currently working on a possibility for Kenyan investors to invest in three other markets: South Africa, Nigeria, and Morocco.

South Africa has the Johannesburg Stock Exchange which is Africa’s most elaborated market with a capitalization of $750 billion.

Next is the Nigeria Stock Exchange, which despite falling indicators remains a highly liquid and growing market. As for Morocco, it has the Casablanca Bourse where are listed companies such as Attijariwafa Bank, BMCE Bank of Africa, Banque centrale Populaire and Maroc Telecom, that have a large presence in Africa.

“We are working to make it so that investors can directly invest in these markets, via their brokers in Kenya,” said NSE director general, Geoffrey Odundo, while indicating that pilot transactions were being tested in the four countries, and that final deployment should take place by the end of 2016.

Nairobi Securities Exchange also planned to launch a derivatives market. The initiative was postponed to June 2016, leaving time for the various actors to be up to date on the segment’s management. The investment firm, despite its margins decreasing in 2015, still has investors’ favor. Its share in the Nairobi stock market since March 29, 2016, is traded at Sh28, thus up about 180% since its introduction on September 15, 2014.

Idriss Linge