The prospects for deepening the activities of the unlisted securities market in Nigeria, came to the fore at a recent stakeholder’s forum hosted by the NASD OTC Securities Exchange.
The forum, a quarterly platform, is an opportunity for stakeholders to discuss developments in the Capital market as it affects trade transactions and market performance and outlook.
Giving his opening remarks the MD/CEO of NASD OTC Plc Mr. Bola Ajomale said the forum was designed to give the capital market operators insight into the strategy and plans of the Exchange in the years ahead.
Ajomale noted that the NASD was focused on driving efficiency and valuable market services, through innovation and smart technology especially in the era of a fourth industrial revolution.
“There is so much we can do, imagine where small businesses can raise funds and make transfers abroad using bitcoins” Ajomale said.
The Head, Legal and Compliance of the Exchange, Ms. Ifeoma Uba-Onubogu, in a presentation, gave an overview of the operations of the NASD since inception.
According to her, the industry started in the 1990s as an association of securities dealers with the primary objective of being a self-regulatory organization (SRO) that would govern trading on listed securities.
Ifeoma Uba-Onubogu informed stakeholders that the focus of the exchange is trading in equities and expanding its other product offerings, which will allow the NASD to embrace other innovative products.
She said the vision of the exchange remained to be the hub of first call for capital formation and liquidity in West Africa, while the mission is creating liquidity transparently.
In her remarks the Head of Operations and IT for the Exchange, Chinwendu Ekeh, said after the Exchange migrated to the B-platform which is a Lite platform fit to scale that matches the market, prices went up which led to a model that was set up to curtail the market observation.
The B-Platform according to her was designed to avoid any tendency of price manipulation, and is a bi-lateral trading platform that empowers the broker to pick the deal he or she wants.
Talking about the recently launched mobile app in July 2019, she mentioned the availability on Google Play and assured the brokers that the IT team is working to constantly upgrade it for seamless operation.
Mr. Enitan Pascal Odogun, ACIS in his presentation on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Assets said blockchain serve as a shared registry that could potentially reduce the number of intermediaries and participants in the market.
He stressed that the purpose of the blockchain is to create electronic decentralized money which is money with algorithm supply.
He said decentralized custody makes it possible for an individual to have total ownership and control of crypto assets, which is used as a crypto wallet that has a public and private key.
Speaking on the advantages of blockchain, he said it is not time consuming, has a fast procedure with one or less intermediaries, a shared registry, provides a platform to raise capital and securitisation among others.
