SBG Securities, the second largest brokerage house by overall market share, on Tuesday unveiled a mobile platform for retail trading in shares at the Nairobi Securities Exchange.
The USSD platform enables retail investors to order, monitor real time market information and sell their shares during trading hours by sending a text to a special code.
The idea behind the product is to spare investors the hassle of queuing at their brokers' offices.
Dubbed M-Shares, it also allows investors to manage their Central Depository System (CDS) accounts and load them with cash via mobile money channels.
The SBG stock trading platform, which has taken more than a year to develop, is the first on USSD code in Kenya.
Rival Dyer & Blair runs an android mobile app called Edge, which it launched in April 2016, enabling retail investors to trade via smartphones.
“Through this platform, you will be able to deposit money from mobile money (into CDS account), then go to the market and buy shares, sell them and withdraw back that money using your mobile money. Obviously, with development in mobile money, you can credit that money to your bank account,” SBG Securities executive director Bethuel Karanja said.
Clients will, however, not immediately enjoy lower transaction fees that come with efficiencies and convenience of mobile trading. Mr Karanja said this will be availed to investors in the near term.
SBG also runs online trading platform, iTrader, which has undergone various upgrades since initial launch in November 2010.
Mr Karanja said about 33 per cent of the firm’s clients are on iTrader.
