NSE moves to improve millennial participation in capital market
Adesola Afolabi was a businessamlive reporter and Head of Financial desk.
…announces inaugural hackathon to address low retail investor challenge
The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) is taking a proactive step towards improving the level of millennial participation in the nation’s capital market.
This step is through the commencement of its first hackathon, called X-Kathon, which is an idea innovation contest designed to improve the Nigerian capital market.
According to a statement from the NSE made available to our correspondent Thursday, the Exchange stated that the inaugural edition of the contest is themed, “Millennial Participation in The Capital Market”, adding that the contest is specifically aimed at enhancing retail investors’ participation in the capital market.
Millennials are young adults born roughly between the early 1981 and 1996.
Today they are people of ages early 20 to late 30’s, who are internet-savvy and wants to get things done on the go.
They make up 30 percent of Nigeria’s population but comprise less of the current active workforce. They are however poised as the generation that will lead the financial development of the country to its next level.
According to the NSE, the aim is to improve the number of retail investors to 25 million as currently, there are about three million retail investors in the Nigerian capital market, representing only 3 percent of the total adult population in the country.
The NSE also indicated that going by the current investor demography, only a few millennials and digital natives participate in the market.
John Nsikak, head enterprise innovation hub at the NSE while speaking on the initiative said, “Technology remains an essential enabler for growth in the Nigerian capital market. While the banking sector has witnessed an increased level of innovation and disruption, leading to the creation of more value for customers, the capital market is yet to experience the same wave of change.
At the NSE, we intend to change this narrative by leveraging X-Kathon as one of the platforms to crowdsource ideas and solutions that will catalyze innovation and startups’ participation in our market. With X-kathon, NSE is inspiring stakeholders in the Fintech industry to solve “participation challenges” in a fun and pragmatic way through the development of simple, yet meaningful solutions. We hope that founders and creative groups will leverage this medium to build a closer relationship with the NSE and the capital market”.
Announcing the requirement, the NSE said
“X-kathon is open to talented individuals, teams and ventures in the tech ecosystem, who have the “magic wand” to explode the growth potentials of the Nigerian capital market.”
It urged interested participants to submit creative ideas, software/tech solutions and hacks to address “low participation of millennials in the capital market” on or before October 8, 2019, by clicking here
The statement further stated that, to ensure the best candidates emerge at the grand finale on October 24, 2019, entries for the X-kathon will undergo rigorous review and the top 10 entries will be invited to a boot camp.
“The overall winner of the maiden edition of the X-kathon will win the sum of five million naira while the first and second runner ups will win three million naira and two million naira respectively.”