T.E. Markets, an adaptable company in Africa with vested interest and investments in real estate, mining and exploration, as well as digital financial services, has launched the African Consolidated Exchange (ACEX) to allow Africans to control the prices of commodities.
The system, which was launched in Nairobi, Kenya, last week, also aims at becoming a key infrastructure for players in the financial markets and digital finance. This platform seeks to serve as a digitalised general store for all forex traders, crypto traders, stakeholders and investors in the financial market on the African continent and beyond.
The Founder and President of T.E Markets and ACEX, Ian Mvula, in an interview after the launch, said the platform is intended to change the narratives of African’s being left behind, especially when it comes to making the financial markets what they are.
He said, for instance, 40 per cent of the global commodities come from Africa but Africa rarely plays a role in determining the prices of such commodities and that changing this narrative has been the motivation for the platform.
Although he acknowledged that the situation could not be changed overnight, the ACEX Founder said changing it starts with a journey, which would soon put pricing power in the hands of Africans.
Mr. Mvula said with steps taken with the launch of the ACEX platform, the company is of the firm conviction that over the next few years to come, the narrative will change and that this is what Africa needs at the moment.
He indicated that ‘cryptorisation’ is a fact of life and has come to stay – and that there is massive adoption of same going on around the world, adding that Africa is currently one of the leading regions of crypto and as such, the ‘TEM coin’, the cryptocurrency project of the T.E Market, will be the medium of exchange on the ACEX platform.
Regulation of cryptocurrency
Mr. Mvula said the company would be self-regulating until applications are allowed for regulation, since in the current situation in Africa, authorities are not yet regulating cryptocurrencies. He noted, however, that in America, authorities had already started the processes of regulating the trading activities with cryptocurrencies.
He disclosed that crypto has already changed the financial market is a great way and that it is currently well over the New York Stock Exchange in market cap, thus it is gone beyond the three trillion market cap. Mr. Mvula explained that it is a huge amount that a regulator should not overlook and not seek to regulate such a market.
Level of cooperation with African governments
He noted that the company has got a lot of support from the countries that have been approached so far, indicating that they do not have any form of regulation for cryptocurrencies, so the ACEX platform could still proceed and as and when regulation comes into force, they take it from there.
Mr. Mvula said he assumes that most of such countries are busily working in the background towards regulating the activities of the market and “we are geared for a time where they will open their doors.”
