The total number of shareholders across industries and sectors remains below half a million, according to the head of the Ethiopian Capital Market Authority (ECMA). Director-General Hana Tehelku warned that despite growing registrations and increasing investor numbers, engagement and awareness remain lacking.<\/p>\n
\u201cBased on rough data, [Ethiopia] has over 130 million citizens, yet the total number of shareholders across all sectors is not even more than half a million\u2014and that figure is inflated. Once duplication is accounted for, it is even lower. Meanwhile, countries with smaller populations have far more investors,\u201d she said during a ceremony marking the handover of a capital market service provider license to Prime Capital S.C, which is joining the financial sector as an investment bank.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough Prime Investment Bank has become the sixth to receive a license, there is still a lot expected of us to actually operate in this sector,\u201d said Hana, noting that market participants had \u201cbrought together shareholders, raised capital, prepared documents, and even rented offices to establish an institutional structure.\u201d<\/p>\n
She described the current period as not only a time of capital market development in Ethiopia but also a highly formative stage for its broader financial system, urging newly licensed institutions to take a broader view of their role.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cThe work we do is not merely transactional. It is not about counting activities, but about the role those activities play in the market and in supporting national growth and development by providing alternative financing options that the country needs,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The head of the Authority also urged firms to assess client needs in detail and study investor behavior, stating they must understand \u201cwhat types of investors exist\u2026 what their risk appetite looks like\u2026 and the characteristics and backgrounds of the investor base,\u201d adding that this requires \u201ccareful study and observation.\u201d<\/p>\n
On expanding access, the DG stressed the need to leverage technology, saying, \u201cpeople should not have to come to your offices to open accounts\u2026 if we rely on that, we may only get hundreds of account openings.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this era of widespread AI and technology, you must build systems, through mobile applications, websites, or other means, that allow people to easily open accounts and transmit trading orders,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The total number of shareholders across industries and sectors remains below half a million, according to the head of the Ethiopian Capital Market Authority (ECMA). Director-General Hana Tehelku warned that despite growing registrations and increasing investor numbers, engagement and awareness remain lacking. \u201cBased on rough data, [Ethiopia] has over 130 million citizens, yet the total […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":50381,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"editor_plus_copied_stylings":"{}","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1935,1960],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-50380","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-latest-ethiopian-business-news","8":"category-latest-news-in-ethiopia"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thereporterethiopia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thereporterethiopia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thereporterethiopia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thereporterethiopia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thereporterethiopia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thereporterethiopia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thereporterethiopia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thereporterethiopia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thereporterethiopia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thereporterethiopia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}