Kenya's Nairobi Securities Exchange(NSE) aims to double revenue from its data business in the next few years to help cushion against periodic drops in trading, its chief executive said on Thursday. Investors have retreated from emerging and frontier markets in recent months, turning to more developed markets where interest rates have been rising, with asset reallocation also partly driven by higher crude oil prices.
The benchmark NSE-20 share index has slid to 3,152.17 points, down from this year's peak of 3,862.27 in March, amid depressed volumes. "We depend very heavily on equities and bond trading as key revenue streams," Geoffrey Odundo told Reuters. "But how can we diversify that?
"We are looking at data business, for instance; working with vendors and other service providers to do information services in a big way. We would like to scale that up from below 5 percent to 10 percent of our total revenue in the next few years or so."
The exchange - the main entry point for foreign investors seeking exposure to East Africa's fast-growing economies - is also focusing on introducing new products. Among the possibilities are more real estate investments trusts (REITS), an NSE-25 index future and single stock futures, Odundo said.