African Securities Exchanges Association taps SecondSTAX to boost Africa’s capital flows

By Delisha Fernandes

The African Securities Exchanges Association (ASEA) has signed a memorandum of understanding with SecondSTAX, a technology company that is building solutions to enhance intra-Africa capital and investment flows to support the success of the African Exchanges Linkage Project (AELP).

SecondSTAX will provide technical and operational support to ensure the successful delivery of AELP, which is the flagship project of the African Securities Exchanges Association (ASEA) and the African Development Bank (AfDB) to enable the free movement of institutional investments between participating exchanges and licensed investment firms across Africa.

The agreement will also include access to SecondSTAX’s KYC portal to streamline the necessary first step for investors to book trades in other markets outside their domiciled region and the SecondSTAX Liquidity Providers Portal, which aggregates licensed foreign exchange providers across multiple markets, including Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), effectively along with tools to measure (in real-time) the speed to deliver each transaction versus the rates of each transaction (per liquidity provider).

Thapelo Tsheole, President of ASEA, said, “A major priority for us is to improve the efficiency and liquidity of Africa’s securities exchanges. This partnership with SecondSTAX will enable us to do that. We look forward to working closely with their team and leveraging their technical capabilities and solutions to drive our common goal of enhancing capital inflows into Africa to drive more economic growth across the continent.”

Eugene Tawiah, CEO and co-founder of SecondSTAX said, “ASEA’s objectives with AELP align perfectly with what we are trying to achieve as a company, so this partnership makes a lot of sense for us. We have a lot of confidence in the solutions we have built, and we are excited to play a key role in the project’s success and drive more growth and efficiency in Africa’s capital markets.”