JSE, NSE Partner to Grow African Capital Markets

The Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), South Africa and the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) are forging a new partnership that will lead to more opportunities for investors and companies in the African capital markets. The partnership, according to the Exchanges, will strengthen other African economy.

Speaking on the partnership, JSE Director, Capital Markets, Donna Oosthuyse, noted that though African securities exchanges face many challenges the collaboration will help grow the markets and also improve liquidity.

“We are of the view that everyone and indeed other markets would benefit from this. We have been working with the NSE for some time in this regard, and the joint goal we have is to develop products and services that would be of interests to issuers and investors in both markets. This would be of mutual benefits. So, we would like to have South African companies and products listed on the NSE. And we would also invite Nigerian issuers and products to be listed on the JSE,” she said.

Oosthuyse expressed the optimism that the cross border-listing will greatly benefit investors and grow the continent’s capital markets as opportunities abound for products and services in cross-listing – companies that are listed Nigeria to also list on the JSE.

“I had personally spoken to a lot of private wealth managers that aspire and want to be exposed to the Nigerian economy because they see higher growth than in many other markets and they believe there is opportunity for greater returns and they are willing to take the risk. So, we see cross-listings not just from Nigeria to South Africa but also from South Africa to Nigeria,” she said.

The JSE director added that the collaboration will also offer both exchanges the opportunity of training programmes to deepen their operational knowledge about topical subjects relating to capital markets.

“We would welcome members from NSE coming over to spend time at JSE and hope that our members would also be welcome here so that we can learn from each other. From our interactions, I think the industry professionals in the NSE and in the ecosystem around investment are very good. Nigeria has almost the same challenge South Africa has, which is how to transfer these expertises into educating the issuers and investors in terms of what value the Exchange brings to the economy,” she added.