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By Chinwendu Obienyi
Despite its reputation as one of the world’s fastest adopters of cryptocurrencies and digital wallets, Nigeria’s capital market is still punching below its weight in the global digital trading space, the newly released Proshare’s 2025 online trading report said on Thursday.
The report revealed that fewer than 10 per cent of Nigeria’s 14.35 million market accounts are actively trading, even as the global online trading industry reached $12.05 billion in 2025, with projections to expand to $17.28 billion by 2029 at a compound annual growth rate of 5.5 per cent.
This represents a massive untapped potential, Proshare stated.
Identifying several barriers to growth in Nigeria’s trading infrastructure, the report said that the the 100,000-unit minimum print rule, distorts price discovery for large-cap stocks.
“Limited trading hours of just 4.5 hours, well below global norms, a T+3 settlement cycle, lagging behind the T+1 standard now dominant globally, a complex closing auction process that undermines investor confidence and absence of basic derivatives products such as index futures and stock options.
Others include, high brokerage fees and an under-capitalised broker community and restricted access to market data, limiting algorithmic and AI-driven trading”, the report said.
Nigeria’s youthful and tech-savvy population is fueling demand for digital investment platforms. But without urgent structural reforms, analysts warn, this demographic could increasingly bypass local markets for foreign platforms offering speed, sophistication, and self-service tools similar to sports betting apps.
The report stressed that with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) readily available, Nigeria must urgently modernise its trading infrastructure. Real-time execution, automated trading systems, and transparent data access are now seen as minimum requirements for competing in the global capital market.
“Today’s digital-native investors want autonomy, speed, and independence in making investment decisions. Proshare noted, while warning that current gaps in Nigeria’s market design risk accelerating capital flight to offshore trading platforms.
With the global digital trading industry on a strong growth trajectory, Proshare argues that Nigeria’s window for reform is narrowing but the opportunity remains vast if policymakers and regulators act decisively.
