Nairobi, May 10 -- About 84,000 small investors bought shares on the Nairobi bourse through the M-Pesa stock-trading platform, Ziidi Trader, between February and March this year, underlining the impact of mobile financial platforms in revitalising retail market participation.

New disclosures from telecoms operator Safaricom show that 84,000 Ziidi Trader accounts participated in share purchases within two months of the platform's launch.

About 511,000 investors signed up for Ziidi Trader, which allows M-Pesa users to directly buy shares on the Nairobi Securities Exchange without opening a traditional brokerage account. This indicates that while many small investors showed interest in the platform, only a fraction actively traded.

The nu...