Nigeria offers an early view of what that shift looks like. The Nigerian Exchange’s Domestic and Foreign Portfolio Investment Report for the first half of 2026 shows retail investors trading ₦3.39 trillion of equities, up 130.4 per cent from ₦1.47 trillion a year earlier, with domestic investors accounting for 87.93 per cent of all trading. Participation still trails the size of the population, though, and a GTI Group executive told an industry workshop in 2025 that nearly six million people were registered on Nigeria’s central securities depository and only about 10 per cent of the accounts were active. The gap between registering and investing is where platforms for beginners are competing.
The first investor is different from the experienced one. An experienced investor can read a portfolio statement and place a trade without help, while a beginner faces barriers that are as much psychological as financial: how much to invest, which stock to choose, what happens after a loss and who to contact when something goes wrong. These doubts often decide whether a first trade ever happens, and they tend to fall into three groups of money, confidence and trust.
Hisa answers the money question with fractional shares, which let users buy a portion of a stock instead of a full share. A user can start with $1, which is less than ₦1,500, and new users who join before the end of the year pay no commission on buy and sell trades in the Nigerian and US markets, with the first three trades remaining commission-free once the promotion ends. For someone investing a small amount, avoiding commission keeps more of it working.
Confidence is the second barrier, and Hisa addresses it with people. Users can reach a human agent by in-app chat, email, WhatsApp, social media or phone, during trading hours and after hours, and the company hosts daily stock market spaces on social media and a Telegram channel with thousands of members so new investors can learn the basics and follow the market alongside others.
Trust is the third piece. Hisa’s equities trading is connected to the market through regulated pathways, backed by Chaka’s SEC digital sub-broker licence, and in a market where many investment offers compete for attention, a regulated route gives a first-time investor something concrete to check before committing.
Fintech’s first phase in Africa was about giving people access to financial services. The next phase is about whether those users stay, learn and keep investing, which depends on whether the product treats a beginner’s first questions as seriously as an expert’s trades, and Hisa’s mix of low entry cost, regulated access and live support is aimed at that question.
Interested investors can visit www.hisa.co or download Hisa from the App Store or Google Play.
Source: africa.businessinsider.com
