Kenya’s stock market is now literally at the fingertips of millions, following President William Ruto’s launch of Safaricom’s Ziidi Trader.
The mobile-first investing tool is designed to pull everyday citizens into formal capital markets, long seen as complex and exclusive to the elite.
Unveiled at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE), the platform embeds share trading directly inside the M-Pesa app, allowing users to buy and sell listed stocks without opening a traditional brokerage or CDS account, barriers that historically shut out smaller retail investors.
President Ruto lauded the launch as a milestone in economic inclusion.
“Through the seamless integration of stock trading into the M-PESA platform, millions of Kenyans, especially our youth and women, will gain simple, affordable, and convenient access to investments,” Ruto said. “This places the tools of ownership and growth directly in their hands.”
Ziidi Trader works by leveraging existing M-PESA identity verification and PIN security. Users opt in within the app, track real-time NSE prices, and execute trades using wallet funds. Safaricom partnered with licensed broker Kestrel Capital to handle execution and settlement, compressing what was once paperwork-heavy onboarding into a few taps.
Safaricom described the rollout as a structural shift in access and financial inclusion in Kenya’s digital leap that aims to ensure nobody is left behind.
“Today marks a shift in how everyday M-PESA users can access the stock market, bringing the ability to buy and sell NSE shares directly inside M-PESA, without the traditional barriers that have kept many people on the sidelines,” the company said in a statement on X.
For Kenya, where mobile money penetration is among the highest in Africa, the impact could be profound. Retail participation in the NSE has long lagged due to cost, bureaucracy, and limited financial literacy. By placing investing inside a familiar payments ecosystem, Ziidi Trader lowers psychological and procedural hurdles that kept ordinary earners, informal traders, and young savers outside formal wealth-building channels.
“This is a proud moment. Ordinary people can now buy shares from the comfort of their homes,” Ruto added.
The platform has widely been touted as a catalyst to deepen capital markets, expand domestic ownership, and accelerate financial inclusion, signalling a broader African shift where mobile infrastructure becomes a gateway not just to payments, but to long-term wealth creation.
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