Wealthtech company DriveWealth is making further inroads into Africa this week with the news that it has partnered with Chaka, a Nigeria-based trading platform.
Chaka will leverage DriveWealth’s API to offer its clients access to U.S. stocks. Citi Investment Capital Limited is a licensed Nigerian stockbroking firm and will facilitate the brokerage transactions for Chaka clients.
“Chaka has developed outstanding technology that we’ve integrated with our customizable APIs to make it easy for clients in Nigeria to participate in the U.S. stock market,” said DriveWealth CEO Robert Cortright. “At a time when many Nigerians are seeking foreign investment opportunities for diversification purposes, this partnership fulfills an important component of Chaka’s global offering with access to the largest and most liquid stock markets in the world.”
Chaka CEO Tosin Osibodu called international investing a “daunting task” for most Nigerians and praised DriveWealth for its “best-in-class” technology, highlighting how the company’s fractional share investment technology makes higher-priced stocks more affordable. “Integration of our technologies has gone very smoothly, and we see this as an important long-term partnership for Chaka,” Osibodu added.
Today’s partnership isn’t DriveWealth’s first connection to Nigeria. In July the company teamed up with Sigma Securities and Trove Technologies to launch a digital U.S. equities trading product for retail investors in Nigeria.
Since it was founded in 2012, the company has set up partnerships with firms on six continents, including Asia, where DriveWealth collaborated with Singapore-based Bambu on the launch of a white-label roboadvisory platform for U.S. wealth managers.
At FinovateAsia 2016, DriveWealth released a new API to enable partners to offer a roboadvisory product suite and a self-directed equity investing platform.