Mr Gregory Waweru, head of SBG Securities, during a 2014 investor briefing in Nairobi. FILE PHOTO | NMG SBG Securities has set sights on facilitating nearly all retail shares deals online in two years, saving clients time spent queuing at the firm’s outlets to trade in shares at the NSE.
The subsidiary of Stanbic Holdings Plc has since late 2010 been investing in online trading platforms aimed at enabling retail investors to order, monitor in real time market information and sell shares as well as make payments remotely.
SBG first launched its iTrader — an online trading platform— in November 2010 followed by M-Shares in September 2017 which allows trading via feature phones.
Mr Gregory Waweru, head of SBG Securities, said more than 80 percent of deals from trading to payments are done online from about a third in 2017.
“The next two years will continue to be crucial in terms of continuing that (online trading) to almost a universal level where we have close to 100 percent transactions,” Mr Waweru said.
“We have been pushing these systems for a long time. What is important now in terms of innovation journey is to essentially make it as easy and seamless as possible.”
Online trading platforms, which have been developed by majority of brokers on the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE), allow investors to manage their Central Depository System (CDS) accounts remotely and load them with cash via mobile money wallets such as M-Pesa and Airtel Money.
That enables traders to deposit cash from mobile money wallets into CDS account, go to the market and buy shares, sell them and withdraw back that money into their wallets.