Zim Stock Exchange Announces Free Online Courses For First Time Investors

The Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) today launched the ZSE Training Institute with the goal to deliver specialised training on various capital market subjects such as the ZSE listing requirements, ZSE products and services and the general process of investing on the stock exchange.

The Training Institute will deliver this information using a number of different channels;

• Online courses
• in-house and custom courses
• Seminars/workshops

At the time of writing, the ZSE is only offering one online course – the Investment 101 course which they describe as a program ” to educate participants on the basic principles of investments on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange”.

A vibrant exchange should also be financially inclusive and as ZS, we have identified that very few people understand how we operate, let alone our products and services

Mr Justin Bgoni

This course will be free of charge and will take 6 weeks to complete, and upon completion, the course taker should be able to invest on the ZSE. The content for the course will be released on a weekly basis with each chapter having quizzes to test participant knowledge and ZSE issuing certificates at the end of the course.

Outside of the Investment 101 course, ZSE has also announced that the following courses will be added to the list of online courses:

• Understanding the ZSE Automated Trading System
• The ZSE listing process
• AI and Trading patterns

At the launch event, the Chairperson of the Association of Listed Companies Mr Canaan Dube acknowledged that the platform is a great first step but the ZSE should take it further and target high schools and tertiary institutions thereby improving access to this information and imparting it at an earlier stage.

The existence of such a platform alongside platforms like C-Trade indicate that the ZSE and Securities Exchange Commission are serious about improving the retail investor involvement locally. These moves will help increase the current number of people actively involved in capital markets – a number said to be as low as 1% of the Zim population by RBZ.