Africa's next capital market opportunity may lie less in attracting money from outside the continent and more in making better use of the capital already here. Pension funds, asset managers, financial institutions and individual investors across Africa hold significant savings, while businesses continue to need long-term funding to grow. The task is to connect the two more effectively across borders.

This is the question Temi Popoola, Group Managing Director and CEO of NGX Group, has placed at the centre of the conversation. Speaking to the BBC, he said Africa needs to be able to "mobilize capital across the continent" and direct it to businesses wherever they operate. For SiBAN, whose members build and operate the digital infrastructure that moves value, this is more than a capital markets story. It is an infrastructure story.

Markets Divided by Borders

Africa's capital markets remain largely organised along national lines. Investors looking to invest beyond their home market must navigate a patchwork of different regulations, currencies, settlement systems, disclosure requirements, and distribution channels. Companies seeking capital from investors in other countries face that same complexity in reverse, having to navigate multiple regulatory regimes, currencies, and distribution channels just to raise funds across borders.

Pierre-Célestin Rwabukumba, CEO of the Rwanda Stock Exchange and President of the African Securities Exchanges Association (ASEA), made the same point at the Building African Financial Markets Forum in Dar es Salaam in July 2026. He noted that African markets remain fragmented and cross-border investment too limited. He argued that harmonised, integrated markets would improve liquidity and widen businesses' access to capital.

Infrastructure Already Taking Shape

Work is already under way. The African Exchanges Linkage Project (AELP), an initiative of ASEA and the African Development Bank, aims to improve access to securities across participating African markets, and NGX is among the exchanges involved.

At home, NGX Group has expanded investor access through NGX Invest. The platform widens the channels through which people can take part in public offers, reaching investors through stockbrokers, banks, fintechs and other financial institutions. The Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals public offer, launched at Nigerian Exchange on 14 September 2026, shows what this looks like at scale: a major African business turning to the capital market to broaden ownership and raise long-term capital.

The policy conversation is moving in the same direction.

Where Blockchain Fits In?

The barriers Popoola describes are the kind that technology is well placed to ease: 

• Settlement
• Custody, 
• Market information, 
• Investor access 
• Investor protection. 

Greater integration requires cooperation across regulation, brokerage, custody, settlement and market information, and no single institution can build that ecosystem alone.

SiBAN's view is that blockchain and digital asset infrastructure can become part of that ecosystem if it develops in step with regulators and market institutions. That means building on shared standards, clear regulation and credible investor protection, not around them. The progress of NGX Invest shows that when technology widens access and the surrounding institutions keep pace, participation grows.

Gaps That Must Close

The opportunity should not be mistaken for an integrated continental market. Here are some of essential actions to be taken:

• Regulators must deepen cooperation.
• Market participants need greater alignment on disclosure and listing requirements
• Exchanges, clearing houses, custodians and settlement systems must be reliably connected.
•  Investors need confidence that they can enter, settle and exit positions efficiently across jurisdictions.

Currency risk is another real constraint as are market depth, liquidity and the ease of repatriating or redeploying capital. Connectivity without liquidity, settlement certainty and investor confidence will not, on its own, create a functioning cross-border market.

SiBAN's Commitment

Nigeria's own market gives the continent a useful starting point. As domestic institutional assets, digital distribution and investor participation grow, the question widens from how Nigerian capital can finance Nigerian enterprise to how African capital can participate across the continent.

SiBAN will continue to engage regulators, exchanges, technology providers and investors to ensure that Nigeria's blockchain ecosystem contributes to this agenda responsibly. As Popoola's vision suggests, the aim is not for one institution to build a continental market alone. It is to create conditions in which many institutions can work together. The vision is continental, and the work will be built market by market, connection by connection.