By Adedeji Fakorede
The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) hosted its fourth quarter Investors’ Clinic targeted at youths in the country.
The clinic themed: ‘Securing Your Tomorrow, Today’, was held at the NSE Event centre and had over 100 youths in attendance.
The investors’ clinic is a free and open financial literacy and inclusion programmes to educate Nigerian youths on the culture of investment in the capital and money markets.
To participate in the clinic, the youths were simply required to apply online.
To further extend the invitation to other young people who may not be digitally savvy yet, the NSE partnered with youth empowerment focused Non-Governmental Organisations like Lynx Nigeria, Mind The Gap and Fifth Gear Plus to get additional participants.
According to Bola Adeeko, head, Corporate Services Division, NSE, “we are committed to building a financially literate generation and we will continue to commit resources to implement a variety of programmes that will enable young people imbue the requisite skills and knowledge that will help them navigate the future through smart investing .”
The clinic kicked off with opening remarks by Bola Adeeko and then Abimbola Babalola, Head of Market Surveillance gave an introductory lecture on the evolution of The Nigerian Stock Exchange. This was followed by insightful presentations by an array of seasoned professionals such as Chukwuka Monye, Director General, Delta State Economic Summit Group who spoke on Understanding Capital Market Basics; Nimi Akinkugbe, CEO, Bestman Games discussed, Personal Financial Management while Adetola Fasuyi, Group Head, Asset Management, Sterling Capital Limited presented on Understanding Your Investment Choices. Mr. Oladapo James, Head, Corporate Communications, Afrinvest gave a step by step approach on using its online portal to access and monitor an investment portfolio.
In closing, Pai Gamde, Head, Human Resources at The NSE reiterated that “It is imperative that this financial literacy clinic hits home. With the startling statistics that 47% of our 29.4 million youths within the ages of 18 and 25 years are financially excluded and they have no access to financial services either formally or informally. As a responsible organization, we will continue to play our part in deploying financial literacy programmes that will develop our youths to become sound leaders of tomorrow.”
The Nigeria Stock Exchange is a social responsible organisation with a robust corporate social responsibility strategy anchored on four pillars of Marketplace, our platform for promoting market-based approach to Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) imperatives; Community, where we make contributions to positively impact lives; Workplace, through which we facilitate diversity, wellbeing and harness the talent and skills of our people; and the Environment as we focus on reducing the Exchange’s environmental impact. As part of efforts to deepen the Nigeria capital market, NSE organises a series of financial literacy and inclusion programmes. In 2014, the NSE executed over 250 financial literacy programmes across Nigeria.