When it comes to investments like securities, treasury bills and bonds, the impression is that one has to have a huge sum of money to invest before looking at any of those options. However, Comercio Partners Ltd is now changing that narrative by making such investments available and accessible even to low-income earners.
Speaking during the Nairametrics Business Half Hour, Co-founder and CEO of Comercio Partners, Nnamdi Nwizu explained how the team is filling in gaps in the investment sector by providing service leadership across a wide spectrum of financial services to Nigerians.
The startup which has become one of the fastest-growing investment firms in Nigeria, commenced operations in 2016, established by three former bankers who wanted to make investment easier and accessible to Nigerians.
“One of those gaps we noticed was in the fixed income market, we saw a gap in the retail sector – that is the bonds, treasury bills and so on, and there was not a lot of involvement in the retail space. Even for those that did get involved, most of them had to go through the whole long process of going to the bank to talk to some people and seek advice over it. The retail investors were not getting the best of financial services in that regard. What we do now is to create products in-house that caters to the retail space and retail investors to ensure that they are not cut out of the market,” Nwizu said.
One of Comercio’s products – Tradefi.ng – has been launched and made available for downloads on the Play Store. With this application, users can register in two minutes and start investing in fixed income assets with as little as N10,000. This takes away the stress and troubles of having to go all the way to the bank to fill out forms, while also providing details on each category so that users can make the best choices.
For investors with low-risk appetite, who are on the lookout for risk-free options, the bonds, treasury bills and other fixed-income assets on the platform provides a wide range of choice for them to explore. With proper knowledge of the investment returns and maturity date, the user can make an informed decision. Upon maturity of the asset, the user can also log into the app, and access the funds with ease.
Typically, the standard size for bonds run into millions of naira, but with Comercio breaking it down into little bits, virtually anyone can invest. While many people may be interested in investing, factors like the high poverty level, low savings and loss of income to inflation, reduce the number of people who are actually able to invest in things foreign currency-based investments, cryptocurrency or even fixed-income assets. Because of this, a service that breaks down huge investment requirements into little bits, generally means that investments can now be accessed by more people.
Comercio focuses on trading fixed income securities and equities for investors and providing financial advisory and asset management services. In terms of financial advisory and portfolio management, Nwizu noted that before Comercio, retail investors were not getting the needed advice on the best-suited product for them, or how to structure their transactions.
“We saw that the clients needed more and we thought we could come in and increase offerings to clients – advice clients on complicated products like derivatives and the likes,” he stated.
Comercio also offers an interdealer brokerage service that is focused on intermediating the OTC market for fixed income assets like bonds, and treasury bills for banks and corporate bodies. This can help the partners in a transaction stay anonymous and get the best rates for their deals. The license for this service is restricted to corporate enterprises and does not cover retail investors.
Beyond helping Nigerians invest, Comercio has also partnered with a payday loan firm that gives out loans to retail clients and helps them access funds for emergency needs. This is one of the suites of financial products that the company is making available to retail investors.
Comercio Partners is not stopping at fixed-income investment options and access to finance. Recently, the startup has ventured into real estate with new products that give access to clients who want to get their first real estate property.
As its services cut across different sectors, Comercio Partners has its activities supervised and regulated by the Security and Exchange Commission, as well as the Financial Markets Dealer Quotation (FMDQ).
From a business that was bootstrapped with borrowed funds in 2016, Comercio Partners has stabilised its operations within six years and is now looking to further expand the suite of products it provides to make investing easy for its customers, and broker transactions for corporate bodies.