JSE, NSE Strengthen Partnership to Boost African Capital Markets
The Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), South Africa and the Nigerian Stock Exchange ( NSE) are strengthening their partnership with the aim of making Africa more attractive and beneficial. To this end, the Business Development Manager, JSE, Tamsin Freemantle visited the management of the NSE and stakeholders in the Nigerian capital market recently. Speaking on her visit, Freemantle said both exchanges have been working together for over a year and a half now in order to establish a relationship that would lead to more opportunities for investors and companies in the African capital markets.
“Last year, the NSE Council visited the JSE as part of building on this relationship. We are looking at staff secondment so that people can come from the NSE to JSE and vice versa. We feel that when we come together and facilitate the transfer of knowledge between exchanges and collaborate on issues affecting our markets will be stronger and that is what we need,” she said.
According to her, the JSE is working with the NSE to ensure the Nigerian capital market enjoys the kind of relative stability the JSE currently enjoys, noting that the investor pools for the two exchanges are not competitive but complimentary.
Apart from targeting knowledge transfer, Freemantle said the JSE would also assist in the area of products development in the Nigerian markets. She said one area both exchanges are already collaborating in terms of products development is the Exchange Traded Fund (ETF), explaining that first ETF (New Gold ETF) to be listed on the NSE in October 2012 was co-issued by a South African issuer, Absa Bank.
“Back in JSE, we introduced the South African rand (ZAR) - Nigerian Naira (NGN) future. This product was listed October last year and has done about two billion rand future trades. This product helps both inves-
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tors in South Africa and Nigeria by giving both the opportunity to hedge against the dollar, by creating a synthetic USD/ Naira hedge,” she said.
Freemantle disclosed that her visit equally afforded her opportunity to establish new relationships and make existing ones stronger, adding that discussions where held with prospective companies with very bright prospects.