Coronation Wealth, the funding platform and fintech subsidiary of Coronation Group, is making a long-term play to show tens of millions of Nigerians into first-time buyers, most of whom have by no means purchased a single inventory.
Launched in April 2024, the corporate is tackling one of many nation’s most persistent monetary challenges: a deep lack of participation in formal capital markets. Regardless of a inhabitants of greater than 200 million, fewer than 1% of Nigerians spend money on collective funding schemes like mutual funds, in response to the corporate. CEO Olufemi Yoloye sees this as each a danger and a serious alternative.
“The market is so skinny that it’s not a sport of snatching clients from one other home,” Yoloye instructed TechCabal in an interview. “We actually need to create a marketplace for the investing public.”
Coronation Wealth is fixing for 2 key ache factors: low monetary literacy and poor entry to funding instruments. Its answer includes three core merchandise: a digital funding schooling platform, a gamified fantasy buying and selling league utilizing stay market information, and a client funding app geared toward simplifying the onboarding course of for first-time customers.
Its Coronation Funding Academy, which has attracted almost 400,000 learners, provides free, digestible academic content material to assist bridge the data hole that usually drives Nigerians to riskier, casual funding schemes. “That’s why yearly there’s a brand new Ponzi scheme, and yearly it has victims,” he stated.
The corporate has additionally rolled out the “Play Coronation Fantasy League,” a digital platform that permits customers to commerce digital portfolios utilizing real-time market information. This gamified strategy, which simulates managing a ₦100 million ($75,000) portfolio, is designed to interact customers and make investing extra approachable.
“If MTN is ₦20, it’s ₦20 on the fantasy league,” Yoloye defined. “If it rises, your portfolio displays that.”
Focusing on retail buyers
The Coronation Wealth app is the precise funding platform, designed with simplicity in thoughts. Yoloye explains that the app prioritises ease of use: “The retail man can’t be overwhelmed by the knowledge.” With only a few graphs and easy evaluation, the app avoids the complexity that may deter new buyers. Coronation Wealth additionally provides proprietary analysis, together with inventory suggestions and mannequin fairness portfolios, similar to one which returned 50% final yr, outpacing inflation.
The corporate’s technique focuses on breaking down obstacles for retail buyers by offering entry to investments which have historically been the area of high-net-worth people and institutional buyers. For instance, industrial paper – a preferred fixed-income instrument – is usually out of attain for many Nigerians as a result of its ₦5 million ($3,121) minimal funding. Nonetheless, Coronation Wealth has discovered a strategy to permit retail buyers to take part by pooling their cash into funds that spend money on such devices. “We’re democratizing entry to funding,” Yoloye says.
Yoloye’s funding philosophy is centered on “first ideas.” He advises customers to evaluate their “danger urge for food,” “funding horizon,” and “price range” earlier than diving into the world of funding. “When doubtful, simply go for a cash market fund,” he suggests.
“Should you don’t have time to trace yield curves or monitor MPC [monetary policy committee] communications, it’s somebody’s job to try this for you once you spend money on a fund.”
Past investing
Coronation Wealth can be positioning itself as a “multi-sided platform” that serves as an middleman between varied monetary providers and retail buyers. The platform integrates a number of providers from throughout the Coronation Group, together with Coronation Asset Administration, which provides mutual funds, cash market funds, and fixed-income devices, and Coronation Securities, which offers entry to inventory buying and selling. The platform can even finally provide insurance coverage merchandise, with regulatory approvals pending.
For Yoloye, the goal is to offer a one-stop store for all issues associated to capital markets. “We’re not there but, however we’re stay with mutual funds and shares,” he says. “By the top of the yr, we must always roll out insurance coverage and different providers. Over time, we’ll layer providers from our companions as nicely.”
Regardless of the competitors, Yoloye doesn’t see different gamers out there as direct rivals. “Anyplace individuals can put cash at this time, I see them as a competitor, extra realistically, extra virtually, I see them as friends,” Yoloye says. He tracks different capital market operators, similar to Optimus by Afrinvest, I-invest by Sterling, and PiggyVest, observing their methods and utilizing them as benchmarks.
“At any time when they do something [features and product offerings], I’m wanting to see how we are able to help constructing the capital market,” he provides.
Coronation Wealth says its digital-first strategy units it aside from conventional gamers out there. “We’re nearer to tech bros than institutional,” Yoloye says, noting that the platform’s agility permits it to quickly adapt to market wants. The corporate not too long ago rolled out an up to date model of its app in January 2025 to enhance efficiency and align extra intently with consumer preferences.
“We needed to rewrite the complete app,” he explains. “Not as a result of it was extra from a perspective of we have to enhance efficiency, however as a result of there was loads of groupthink. We wished to make the app work for everybody, not simply capital market gamers.”
Coronation Wealth sees an enormous alternative to reshape Nigeria’s funding panorama. The nation’s common age is skewing youthful, with 62% of the inhabitants below the age of 24, in response to the Nationwide Bureau of Statistics (NBS). This shift presents a singular likelihood to satisfy a brand new technology of buyers the place they’re and construct a extra inclusive market.
“If all we’re capable of do is help nationwide discourse with uncooked information, we are able to make the case for regulation changes that permit youthful buyers to take part,” Yoloye says.
Coronation Wealth’s lengthy play is that monetary inclusion received’t be pushed solely by financial institution accounts or funds, however by fairness possession. It’s betting that Nigeria’s subsequent million buyers aren’t coming from the banks. They’re being created from scratch.
