Stakeholders tap technology to enrol youths into Nigeria capital market

Stakeholders in Nigeria’s capital market said they are leveraging technology to bring more youths into the space.

These stakeholders disclosed this at an event hosted to celebrate two members from the Institute of Capital Market Registrars (ICMR) that got promoted to a higher level.

Seyi Owotoro, president, ICMR said many measures have been put in place leveraging technology to drive more younger people into the Nigerian capital market.

“The Nigerian exchange (NGX) has launched a platform through which from the comfort of your home as a younger person you can buy shares of a company that is issuing securities and that we work significantly with the NGX to get that achieved and we are very much around the regulation in that process,” Owotoro said.

He also added that the sector recently hosted a retreat on Artificial Intelligence (AI) which explained it’s impact in the industry

According to him, “The young people are interested in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and recently we had a retreat where we talked about the impact of AI in our market. Another thing we did was to encourage the regulator to pass the regulation around electronic offerings to ease the process of participating in the capital market.”

Owotoro said many Nigerian youths are not investing in the capital market because they are doing more of cryptocurrency basically because they may lack proper knowledge of the industry and the cryptocurrency industry seems to yield immediate returns.

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“The capital market is patient capital where people are ready to wait out because it’s not gambling and many of the young people prefer investments with quick returns.”

He urged young Nigerians to come into the industry as professionals which is why the institute exists, noting that the institute have student members who could be university students and there is a conversion programme to bring them into the profession.

Also, Oladeji Olanrewaju, president, chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN) who is also a member of ICMR said he is using his positions in the profession to direct youths into positive use of the internet for a sustainable future.

“In our time, there is nothing like internet and we have a focus on trading. I pity the youths because there are a lot of distractions on the Internet but some of those distractions can be used for good. A lot of them are taking advantage of them too

“There is hardly any company in the world today that is not in need of IT because technology is what will drive the business of the future and we need expert in it. The likes of coding and other things rather than irrelevant things. So there is need to motivate them. We are planning to bring more youths together, share knowledge with them and let them know how we can help them realise that quick money is not sustainable,” he said.