Exclusive: Exness Expands African Footprint with New Kenya License

Exness has added another African license to its regulatory arsenal, this time from the Capital Markets Authority of Kenya (CMA), Finance Magnates learned exclusively. With the new Kenyan license, the platform can now operate as a non-dealing online broker in the country.

The new license was obtained as a part of the  multi-asset  broker’s strategic expansion plan in sub-Sarahan Africa. Moreover, it received a regulatory license from the South African Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) for the same African push.

“The CMA license is an important step for Exness to develop an even more powerful presence in Africa,” Paul Margarites, the Regional Commercial Director for Sub-Saharan Africa at Exness, said in a statement.

“Thanks to our FSCA license, we got off to a good start in establishing our reputation in the continent in 2021. We look forward to providing our products and services to more traders across Africa via our new license.”

Strengthening Local Regulations

Kenya has become one of the very few African nations to strengthen its financial services regulatory regime, especially in the forex brokerage industry. Additionally, the regulatory body is tightening its grip on the market and has issued multiple warnings against trading on locally unlicensed platforms, which are still rampant in the country.

However, the CMA has licensed only a handful of brokers to operate in the country until now. Apart from Exness, other big brokerage names operating in Kenya with a local license are EGM Securities, which is the Kenya-based operations of Equiti Group and locally trading as FXPesa; SCFM Limited, trading as Scope Markets, Pepperstone Markets Kenya Limited and Exinity.

Meanwhile, Exness is aggressively growing its global presence across several other emerging markets. It became the only  retail trading  broker to cross the $2 trillion mark for monthly trading volume in March and maintaining it since.

Apart from the two African licenses, the Exness Group is also licensed by the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) and the Seychelles Financial Services Authority (FSA).