Hisa Lets Nigerians Start Investing With Less Than ₦1,500

Retail investors traded ₦3.39 trillion of equities on the Nigerian Exchange in the first half of 2026, up 130.4 per cent from ₦1.47 trillion a year earlier, according to the exchange’s Domestic and Foreign Portfolio Investment Report. Based on the report’s total of ₦9.61 trillion in transactions, retail trading made up a little over a third of market activity.

Growth at that scale still leaves many households outside the market, and the cost of getting started is often the reason. For many Nigerians, buying stocks sounds like something that needs substantial capital, and looking at the price of a single share, the brokerage fees and the sum needed to build a worthwhile portfolio, a small investor can easily decide the market was not designed for them.

Hisa, the stock trading app from Chaka Technologies Limited, is built to challenge that assumption. Chaka is the first SEC-licensed digital sub-broker in Nigeria, and Hisa, which launched in April, replaced the earlier Chaka app with a simpler interface, a wider selection of stocks and lower fees. It gives users access to the Nigerian and US markets from one account.

Its proposition for smaller investors centres on a simple question:

How little can someone start with?

The central feature is fractional investing, which lets a user buy a portion of a stock instead of a whole share. On Hisa, a beginner can start with $1, which is less than ₦1,500, so someone with limited disposable income does not have to wait until they can afford a full share. A lower entry point does not remove risk, since share prices rise and fall and investors can lose money, but it reduces the capital needed to begin and lets a beginner learn how orders and portfolio movements work while only a small sum is exposed.

Trading costs weigh more heavily on small portfolios. A commission that is negligible on a ₦2 million order takes a visible share of a ₦20,000 one, which is why fees are often the first thing a cautious beginner checks. New users who join Hisa before the end of the year pay zero commission on all buy and sell trades in the Nigerian and US stock markets, and after the promotion ends they still receive their first three trades commission-free.

A low entry price only matters if the platform can be trusted. Hisa’s equities trading is connected to the market through regulated pathways under Chaka’s SEC digital sub-broker licence, so users know who handles their trades and that a regulator oversees the relationship. Customers can also reach a human agent by chat, email, WhatsApp or phone during trading hours and after hours, and Hisa hosts daily stock market spaces on social media and a Telegram channel with thousands of members for users who want to learn before they trade.

The real test for any investing app is whether someone moves from wanting to invest to having made a first investment. Hisa’s answer is that the market can begin with a first trade of any size.

To start, visit www.hisa.co or download Hisa from the App Store or Google Play.