The Lusaka Securities Exchange (LuSE) Chief Executive Officer Priscilla Sampa has disclosed that LuSE is soon going to launch an online platform that will allow the public to buy and sell shares online.
Speaking during the launch for the #FinancialLiteracyWeek2021 which the Zambian Business Times – ZBT is participating in, Sampa stated that “As LuSE, we understand the current market shift to using digital interactions to offer better access to financial instruments making it all round convenient for you as an end user, other than ensuring the social distancing.
“We have been thrown a turbulent year in the light of the Covid-19 pandemic, each one of us has suffered indirectly or directly by the pandemic, we have since made some changes to how we were living before the pandemic,” she said.
Sampa said these changes have expedited a rapid shift from being more physical to more digital interactions; this has caused some uncertainties in the wellbeing of some people financially.
She disclosed that “for purposes of being efficient and effective, LuSE is about to introduce an online platform that allows the public to trade their shares, bonds and other financial instruments on LuSE”.
“This platform will be available on phone via USSD, mobile application and internet. So you can buy and sell shares or other securities from the Comfort of your home or office,” she said.
The LuSE CEO also said her Organization was working on an online portal that will bring together Small and Medium size Enterprises – SMEs in need of capital and SME financiers. “We will soon be launching an innovative platform that brings together SMEs in need of capital and the financiers who are looking for investment opportunities.
“The portal comes completely with an inbuilt comprehensive scoring and rating of each input by the respective SME as an applicant indicating to the SME financier how well they are doing and the prospects of their application. Some may raise capital by way of acquiring shares from financiers,” she said.
Local businesses in Zambia have had difficulties raising requisite finances to use to build their businesses and scale to large corporate. The banking industry is dominated by commercial banks with no specialized units for development or venture capital finance.
The LuSE alternative market has also had challenges to emerge as a viable alternative platform for SMEs to fully utilize to raise capital for growth. Yet is is well known that most people in Zambia work for SMEs in the vast informal sector, with broad based national development depending on this very sector (SME’s) to expand.
