The Nigerian Stock Exchange (“the Exchange” or “NSE”) in conjunction with Fund Managers Association of Nigeria (FMAN); Association of Stockbroking Houses of Nigeria (ASHON) and The Central Securities Clearing System (CSCS) Plc has launched the NSE Mutual Fund Trading and Distribution Platform on February 22 at the NSE in Lagos.
The Mutual Fund trading platform will bring together market participants to facilitate electronic transactions with seamless interaction between NSE, CSCS Plc, Fund Managers and Brokers Dealers. Investors will have the benefit of a single view of their mutual fund investment and ease variety of transactions like subscription, redemption, cancellation etc.
Speaking on the development, Mr. Olumide Bolumole, Head of Listing Business Division, NSE, said: “We are delighted to provide a solution that will enhance visibility for the listed mutual funds and promote financial inclusion, while stimulating retail investor participation in our market.
“This reinforces our commitment to provide market professionals, issuers, fund managers and investors with a reliable, efficient and an adaptable exchange hub in Africa, to save and to access capital. Through this platform investors can pool funds into chosen basket of securities which have proven to be a veritable means to optimise returns and reduce risks”.
The Managing Director/CEO, Mr. Haruna Jalo-Waziri CSCS Plc welcomes the launch of the trading platform for mutual funds. “This marks yet another milestone for the Nigerian capital market and we believe that it will serve as a step towards improving the level of financial inclusion in Nigeria by giving investors varieties of investment products”.
“As part of our commitment to providing far-reaching benefits to the capital market, CSCS Plc has proactively invested in technology that would enable us provides seamless post-trade services to a wide range of financial instruments including collective investment schemes. Additionally, Fund managers can now augment their product distribution strength using the brokerage communities’ network. We believe this will also contribute towards increasing secondary market participation whilst growing funds under management for Asset managers”, Jalo-Waziri added.
According to the President of Fund Managers Association of Nigeria (FMAN), Mr. Dayo Obisan, “It is a great pleasure to see the platform launched and become operational. One of the initiatives in the FMAN 5-year road map was to develop and implement a nationwide distribution/trading platform for mutual funds. Over the past 18 months, The NSE, CSCS Plc, ASHON and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) worked closely with FMAN to attain this great milestone”.
Also, the Chairman of the Association of Stockbroking Houses of Nigeria (ASHON), Chief Patrick Ezeagu, noted, “We in the ASHON are highly delighted to have been a part of the development and emergence of the Memorandum Trading Platform. The project was directed at reawakening the small savers in order to take advantage of investing via mutual fund to have the synergistic benefit of a better return in the market”.
“We cherish the relationship we have built in the course of this project with the FMAN and the NSE, we have the firm belief that this success story will transcend to other areas of the capital market. The Memorandum Trading Platform will facilitate the ease of doing business in trading and distribution of Mutual Funds, it will inspire small savers thereby promoting financial inclusion which is an important focus of our members. We congratulate everyone that contributed to the success of this initiative and encourage all operators to embrace this new aspect of deepening of our market which is a formidable incursion into an erstwhile grey
sector”.