Standard Bank, has in collaboration with the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), expanded their offering on the Standard Bank Shyft App, and will, as of today, offer retail investors the opportunity to trade JSE listed shares on the bank’s forex and investment platform.
Shyft’s Development
The Shyft App was developed in 2016, primarily as a foreign exchange global money app, however it has expanded into a payment and remittance platform, and later extended its service offering to include travel and shopping services.
According to Glyn Allen, Head of Shyft at Standard Bank, the application development to include the JSE shares has been through a five-year development period where numerous compliance and regulatory aspects had to be resolved.
Until now, the investment offering on Shyft has only offered off-shore investments with access to over 1,000 top global stocks and Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) on the New York, London, and Frankfurt stock exchanges.
The addition of the JSE as an offering will provide retail investors a greater diversified portfolio opportunity in one place.
Accessibility & Fee Structure
The platform is also available to Standard Bank and non-Standard Bank clients who reside in South Africa or Botswana and offers physical and digital cards. Users can simply download the App and fill in basic details to open an account, making the process simple and pain-free, according to Allen. “No paperwork needed. It’s quick, it’s efficient, you get your cards” stresses Allen.
There is a basic minimum R20 monthly fee with a 0,4% Transaction fee charged. In addition a 0,12 share holding fee is also charged.
“We are proud to be able to offer people the opportunity to buy and invest in proudly South African companies. Shyft is built on making transacting easy for consumers and we are immensely proud to be partnering with the biggest exchange on the continent to offer clients and prospective clients a unique diversification opportunity,” says Glynn Allen, Head of Shyft at Standard Bank.
Differentiation Unclear
While it makes perfect sense for Standard bank to extend the App service and product offering to existing Shyft and Standard Bank Clients, who according to Standard Ban have been requesting JSE listed share trading, it is unclear what differentiates their service from other competitors in the share trading platform market place.
As a cost comparison, Easy Equities charges a 0,25% fee on transactions with a minimum monthly fee of R25.
Other significant shortcomings are the lack of fractional share purchasing and the lack of crypto trading options, as well as having no other African Bourses on which to trade shares.
While fractional shareholding and crypto trading is, according to the Shyft team, being looked at, there is no timeframe provided yet, as to when these might be available.
While the current client base of over 230 000 Shyft App users would indicate that as a forex platform and service, Shyft is certainly meeting the market’s expectations, their new JSE share trading service may need to shift gears more, to find traction in the general share trading platform marketplace with extensive retail share trading options available.
Extended JSE Trading Channel Welcomed
The addition of the JSE as a share trading option is certainly welcome and the JSE will be glad to have a new trading channel available. As pointed out by Vuyo Mashiqa, Head of Equity and Equity Derivatives at the JSE stating “We are pleased to see the innovation and priority to enable the enriching of South Africa’s investment landscape by providing investors with access to diverse investment products and trading opportunities”.
Valdene Reddy, the Director of Capital Markets at the JSE spoke about the growing culture of people who are curious about new forms of savings and investments, welcomed the inclusion of the JSE share trading on Shyft saying that, “The ease of the App and how accessible it is going to be to the masses of South Africa is really the coolest thing”. (WATCH BELOW)
“This partnership enables more people to trade on the open market which benefits both the country and the continent, and we look forward to building on it to provide solutions that help people get value for their money,” concludes Allen.
