The Eswatini Stock Exchange offers retail and institutional investors easy access to investment in a safe and regulated environment, where securities can be traded with transparency. The ESE uses an Automated Trading System (ATS) which is an electronic platform for the purchase and sale of securities. The ATS has an order matching engine and replaces the manual trading of shares that we have all been used to in Eswatini over the past 30 years.
Current holders of certified securities are expected to surrender their certificates to the transfer secretary for conversion into an electronic form (dematerialization) before they can sell their holdings on the automated platform. The transfer secretary will access the CSD system and perform the dematerialization function thereby enabling the holder to go and place their sell order with the stockbroker of their choosing. The brokers can assist their clients to dematerialise their certificates by collecting them and submitting the request to the transfer secretary.
Every investor and potential investor who wishes to trade securities listed on the Eswatini Stock Exchange must have a Securities Account and Cash Account. Investors cannot deal directly on the exchange. They invest through a stockbroker.
A securities account is opened with the Central Securities Depository (CSD). To open a securities account on the CSD the investors must approach a stockbroker of their choice, who will provide them with the relevant applications forms.
The investor is expected to fill in the forms and provide the necessary Know Your Investor (KYI) documents. The Broker is expected to also set a Cash Account for the investor by way of selecting the clients’ bankers and stating the clients banking details. Once an account has been opened, the investor can proceed to place a buy or sell order with their stockbroker who will then enter the order on to the Automated Trading System.