and CEO of the BRVM (left) and Dr Walid Al Ballaa, Managing Director, DirectFN Ltd
Abidjan, 30 July 2021: From the speech of Dr Walid al-Ballaa, Managing Director of DirectFN, at the signing ceremony for AELP Link technology platform.
“I feel honoured, privileged and humbled to sign the Contract to partner in establishing the AELP Link technology platform with African Securities Exchanges Association (ASEA) and the African Development Bank (AfDB).
I would like to congratulate and thank all the team members from ASEA, headed by Dr. Edoh Kossi Amenounvé, President of ASEA; Tom Minney, Project Manager AELP; Furaha Karba, Head of Secretariat; together with all the other members who conducted the detailed and transparent process of selection for over 12 months with over 23 prequalification applications from top international suppliers in 18 countries. I would also like to extend my words of thanks to our team of DirectFN who has put all efforts for us to reach this signing ceremony.
I am Dr. with PhD in Computer Science and, with my team of over 250 professionals, we share the common DNA of “Innovation”. Value drives us as our “purpose”, with game-changing innovation as DirectFN’s foundation and new value creation for the capital market ecosystem as our ongoing passion.
We bring “relevant technology solutions to practical challenges”. Thus DirectFN (or Mubasher meaning “Live” in Arabic) becomes Live-Success from Saudi/Middle East to reach across the Emerging and Frontier Markets.
We bring our consistent specialization for over 20 years in bringing digital maturity with solutions in FinTech (software applications platforms; both conventional platforms such as for brokerage > asset > custody management, and emerging platforms such as robo-advisory, crowd-funding, Blockchain, etc.) and FinCON (market information screens). We provide these to leading brokerage houses, banks, clearing members and asset management companies spanning from Morocco to Indonesia. We serve from five corporate offices in UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
From DirectFN’s view point, this project of establishing the AELP Link is not based on a typical supplier delivery to a client, in which the client pays and the supplier delivers. DirectFN is signing this contract in the spirit of forward-looking engagement as mutually-dependent partnering, or the investing model. By investing to bring “digital-maturity” in building “digital-relationships” rather just “linking” the brokerages across the exchanges under the AELP-Link Platform establishment we aim to increase practically the liquidity across the participating African Exchanges and digitally to enable the African capital market ecosystem to create positive impact in the overall economy.
What Mubasher did back in Middle East by linking brokerages across seven exchanges (#1 Saudi, #2 UAE, #3 Kuwait, #4 Bahrain, #5 Oman, #6 Qatar, and #7 Egypt) was simply cross-border trading from one Middle Eastern securities exchange to another. At the time this was considered “challenging”, but now it is practical reality.
With better technology now (Order Routing System > FIX-hub > Market Data Backbone) over Cloud, we are excited to bring an innovation-drive to seven of Africa’s leading securities Exchanges (#1 BRVM, #2 Casablanca, #3 Egyptian Exchange, #4 Johannesburg Stock Exchange, #5 Nairobi Securities Exchange, #6 Nigerian Exchange and #7 Stock Exchange of Mauritius ) working together under this African Exchanges Linkage Project (AELP) to boost pan-African investment flows and spread liquidity to African markets.
We consider we are making history together, so we all will be able to look back on this date as one that shaped the future.”
