When Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote said in an interview in 2019 that he plans to secure most of his investments outside Africa, it was to protect his wealth from the numerous uncertainties that plague most of the continent, according to financial experts.
For instance, since 2017 the Nigerian economy has been in a post-recession sluggish growth. Recently, fears about an imminent naira devaluation have been gaining momentum.
The Central Bank of Nigeria had in November assured investors in London that there will be no more naira devaluation until the exchange rate falls to $30 billion. Lower dollar inflows reduce the CBN’s firepower in defending the naira against any depreciation as it eats away at the external reserves.
Unfortunately, Nigeria’s reserves dropped by $4.45 billion from the $43.07 billion recorded in January 2019 to $38.61 billion in December 2019, a Central Bank of Nigeria’s data revealed. There is little assurance that the decline would not continue in 2020, hence the fear of naira devaluation.
Naira devaluation is the deliberate downward adjustment of the value of the naira relative to another currency (dollar for instance), group of currencies, or currency standard. Since 1986, the Nigerian naira’s relationship with the US dollar has been unpredictable and often times full of heartbreak.
But beyond just protecting your money from the devastating effect of a devaluation, it makes good sense to diversify your investment portfolio in order to shore up your revenue. These three mobile applications would have you get started.
Risevest
If you are at the beginning stage of your investment journey, Risevest is the ideal platform to get you started. Until November 2019, the mobile investment platform used to be known as CashEstate. Following its rebrand, Rise simplified and automated investment on its platform. On the new Rise, users could become owners of global businesses with as little as N3,600 being the exchange for a $10, within a few minutes of being verified.
Investment options on the Rise mobile app include US real estate, US Stocks, US Venture Capital, and Fixed income. Users can also earn between 13 and 15 percent interest on their annual investments and half of that if they chose the 6 months tenure.
As of November, Rise said it has invested over $528,000 for more than 2,800 users who now own global assets that are shielded from devaluation and inflation. The app is available on the Google and Apple stores.
Bamboo
The Bamboo investment platform is specifically for buying and selling top stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and American depository receipts (ADRs) in the United States.
Although the company claims to give “unrestricted access” stocks listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), it is unavailable to users for now. So for the moment, you are restricted to options US stocks, which is equally great considering you have access to juicy stocks like Tesla, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, etc.
The minimum a user can invest in Bamboo is $20 which can be paid with your naira card, dollar card, bank transfer, and wire transfer. To start trading on the Bamboo app is very simple and requires a bank verification number (BVN) and contact details.
Robinhood
Unlike Rise and Bamboo which are Nigerian, Robinhood is a US-based stock trading app that pioneered free commissions and allows users to buy and sell portions of shares of thousands of stocks and ETFs with as little as $1.
Robinhood is also one of the few global brokers that give you the opportunity to trade cryptocurrency and maintain a zero account wallet.
Beyond its commission-free stock, options, ETF, and cryptocurrency trades, Robinhood also provide savings for investors who trade frequently
Robinhood also helps reduce investors’ costs through its clearing service which allows the company to operate its own clearing system, which reduces some of the service’s account fees.
