eToro, which offers retail brokerage services, announced on Wednesday that the trading platform is now onboarding new clients from South Africa.
“It's been a long time coming, but we are SO excited to announce that we are now accepting new users from South Africa,” eToro stated in an announcement.
The brokerage does not hold any license from the South African financial market regulator, the Financial Sector Conduct Authority. It is registering clients from the African country under a United Kingdom-based entity, eToro (UK) Ltd, which is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA ).
Headquartered in Israel, eToro made its name by offering copy trading services and then transitioned to a full brokerage. Additionally, the brokerage is regulated in multiple other jurisdictions like Australia, Cyprus and Seychelles.
The broker entered the South African trading market when it was pushing to list itself publicly on a United States stock exchange. It has already entered into an agreement with an America blank-check company for a reverse merger but is yet to close the deal with the approaching deadline of June 30, 2022.
Moreover, eToro registered itself as a digital asset service provider (DASP) in France which will allow it to offer non-leveraged crypto products in the country. Further, the broker is aggressively expanding its cryptocurrency offerings.
Africa: An Emerging Retail Trading Market
South Africa is a major African market where retail trading activities are booming. The number of daily forex traders in the country is estimated to be around 190,000, which is just behind Nigeria. However, South Africa topped the average transaction size per trader in the continent, according to a Finance Magnates Intelligence report last year.
Meanwhile, other brokers are planning to enter the lucrative South African retail trading market. Poland-headquartered XTB is intending to launch South African forex trading operations in the second half of 2022.
