ALTX Africa Group, an investment holding company incorporated in Mauritius, has launched a new financial exchange in Uganda, the first in a series of steps to establish the network of exchanges in Africa.

ALTX East Africa, an ALTX Africa Group company opened to operate an ALTX exchange in Uganda, has the capability to handle 150,000 transactions per second and is one of the fastest in global production.

ALTX perceive this as a truly ground breaking innovation that challenges the traditional context of efficiency in the securities markets.

Jatin Jivram, Co-Founder and Director of ALTX East Africa, said: “Our commitment to Uganda, East Africa and Africa can be seen through what we have put forward for this exchange in Uganda.”

“We shall continue to seek markets in which to roll out additional trading facilities to ensure that Africa has access to the best and that securities trading, which is a norm in middle and high income countries can take its rightful place among the opportunities available to raise incomes on the continent,” he said.

The team led by CEO, Joseph Kitamirike has built the exchange since 2013, and spent most of the last eight months optimizing their systems.

The platform obtained regulatory approval in 2014 and depository approval was secured in 2015.

Settlement of trades where the settlement bank is automated, can take from 15 seconds to 15 minutes, implying that where an investor anywhere in East Africa has previously had to wait for four or five days to access their settled funds, one will now be able to access those funds on the same day.

ALTX East Africa was enabled to do this by its partnership with GMEX Technologies, a London-based exchange technologies company and ESCROW Group, who also specialize in securities management and systems.

“The technology package that ALTX has assembled for the ALTX East Africa exchange is blazing the trail in terms of performance and risk management”, said Kitamirike.

“We spared no expense to access the best and most reliable technology, seeking to ensure that our customers who will always want to associate with a leader have access to the best,” he added.

Edward Katimbo Mugwanya, ALTX Board Chairman, noted that ALTX represents a great opportunity for millions of new investors to come into the securities market, as they have set low thresholds, availed interfaces to investors and will introduce direct smartphone access for investors to its platforms.

“Securities trading will no longer represent the hassle associated with broker-assisted account opening and trading, long delays in settlement, as well as the risk of losing value and we look forward to leading this transformation,” he said.

ALTX will launch with depository receipt securities issued on the treasury secondary market.

In the medium term, ALTX will introduce global equities, access to global bond products and exchange traded funds.

ALTX East Africa is regulated by the Capital Markets Authority of Uganda.

Keith Kalyegira, CEO of Capital Markets Authority, said: “We are happy that ALTX East Africa has reached this milestone in their journey and as the regulator, we expect ALTX to deliver on the securities products that they indicated to us in their plans and to ultimately grow the investor and issuer base in Uganda, considering that domestic savings which are currently growing at an annual average rate of 30% do not have sufficient investment options.”

“We are also hopeful that ALTX’s existence will increase the number of skilled capital markets practitioners and intermediaries,” he said.