Nigeria Content Online

The
Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) has encouraged more stockbrokers to
engage remote trading system to further ease their operations.

Wole Tokede, the
NSE’s spokesperson, in a statement on Wednesday, said the use of remote
trading by stockbrokers “has continued to grow in acceptance as there
are 235 remote trading connections in Lagos, besides those deployed in
branches across the country.”

Remote trading,
which is one of the attached benefits of the Automated Trading System
being used for transaction, was introduced to the market in 2005. The
system enables stockbrokers to trade from their offices without having
to come to the Exchange in person.

Ogbonnanya Osita,
NSE deputy general manager and acting head, Market Operations and IT
Directorate, said, “Stockbroking firms are connected based on request,
and the number of dealing member firms that are using the system is
growing rapidly.”

He said that
stockbrokers who still come physically to the Exchange’s floor to trade
“are doing so because most of them want to keep relationships with
their colleagues since they have the capacity to do remote trading from
their offices.” He also said that the situation is the same in advanced
markets.

Some stockbrokers have described the impact of the remote trading on their operations.

The chief executive
officer of Stanbic IBTC Stockbrokers Limited, Akeem Oyewole, said the
remote trading has helped the growth of the market and improved the
performance of his company.

“We have ten
stockbrokers in our company and it is only one of them who goes to the
Exchange’s trading floor to trade physically. The remaining nine trade
remotely from our office. It is working fine, it has been a blessing to
our operations,” Mr. Oyewole said.

Kasimu Kurfi, the
managing director and CEO of APT Securities and Funds Limited, the
first company to start remote trading on the Exchange, said “We have
been using it since inception and since then we have never encountered
any serious problem.”

Meanwhile, Victor
Ogiemwonyi, CEO of Partnership Investment Company, said there are
challenges with the remote trading system that may be beyond the
control of the Exchange.

“Sometimes, the link is bad and that is the problem of Internet Service Providers,” Mr. Ogiemwonyi said.

However, Mr. Osita
said that there are two service providers engaged by the NSE for the
purpose and these are 21 Century and MTN.

He said the network
coverage of the service providers is not everywhere and this reality
has been a drawback to the operations of remote trading.

In the mean time,
investors at the NSE, on Wednesday, recorded more losses on the value
of their equities, as market closed trading on negative note after
Tuesday’s break.

The NSE market
capitalisation of the 201 First-Tier equities closed yesterday at
N8.459 trillion after opening the day at N8.501 trillion, reflecting
0.49 per cent decline or N42 billion losses. The market had lost over
N27 billion on Monday.