Barclays' brokerage arm opens trading at NSE

Barclays Bank of Kenya wants to grow its non-interest income to at least 40 per cent as its new brokerage subsidiary begins trading on the Nairobi bourse. PHOTO: COURTESY

Barclays Bank of Kenya wants to grow its non-interest income to at least 40 per cent as its new brokerage subsidiary begins trading on the Nairobi bourse.

The bank, which by June had grown its non-interest income to 32 per cent, now wants a share of the revenue streams from Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) starting on Monday when Barclays Financial Services Limited makes a debut at the market.

“We have been on agenda to invest in new revenue streams. There are many global players who may want to do investments in the country. We will become natural partners, said Group CEO Jeremy Awori. “If they are coming here, they do so with hard currency and that also gives us foreign exchange revenue.”

The subsidiary is set to hot up competition for other market participants especially that it will be an extension of Barclays Africa’s sales and training network that is spread in 10 countries.

With its plan to launch Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), the firm will become the first in Kenya to do so, buoyed by success on Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). This, according to NSE CEO Geoffrey Odundo, will give both local and international customers access to financial services.

ETFs are marketable securities that track indices, commodities, bonds or a basket of assets. The brokerage firm will also be offering cash equity trading services, fixed income and bond trading and derivatives. It will ride on over 330 experts spread across Africa giving it a formidable reach to foreign investors.

So far, the firm has set up trading desks in nine African markets including Botswana, Ghana, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia as well as South Africa.

For ease of access to information, the firm will be running Barclays live, a portal with global research, indices, data and analytical tools in key sectors such as health, manufacturing, transport and logistics.

This means that its clients who subscribe to the portal will get real time information to make investment decisions. The bank hopes to rope in the 60,000 local investors that have invested in the bank.

The lender’s head of markets Anthony Kirui downplayed the poor performance of NSE at the moment. “Markets go through cycles. For us, it is a good thing to come in at the bear run. It is just a transition period owing to factors such as Brexit and US elections. Markets will rebound,” he said.

Year to end of September report showed that majority of counters shed more than 10 per cent of their value.