Digital savings and investment app, Cowryrise has acquired a license to be a fund/portfolio manager by the Securities and Exchange Commission in Nigeria, and is the first fintech to do so.
“We’re particularly excited about this because it strengthens our resolve to provide accessible wealth-building tools in Nigeria and across Africa,” the fintech said.
According to Cowryrise, the SEC license will usher in APIs that will help providers across the world access their services and open up theirs to serve first-time investors better. “On the fund managers side, we will not just broaden their reach to first-time investors, we will deepen our partnerships with many more”, the investment giant said.
When Cowryrise was launched in 2017, there were no regulatory framework binding fintechs, and this placed them at a disadvantageous position as it was hard to seal deals with investors due to a lack of trust. Cowryrise partnered with Meristem Trustees Limited, a regulated entity to allay setbacks, this meant placing investment protection as a priority which bore more evidence in their slogan “Trust is our currency“. To carry this effectively, they mirrored the trustee structure of traditional firms.
Asides from investors getting further reassurance that they are on the right side of money, Cowryrise in a blog post said that it will be building more immersive experiences for them. “Taking things a notch up, we will be making our APIs public to help fund managers across the world access our services and open up more investment options to serve our customers in Nigeria better. Digitizing the investment management infrastructure is an important next step in our vision to democratize access to investment products. These APIs do not just apply to fintechs; any company can embed investment features in their products as our investment API simplifies regulatory, compliance, and technical hurdles. Hence, we are opening up early access to these APIs.”