How the ContiSX CSD works
One secure home for African investments. Buy, settle, borrow and earn — across borders, in your own currency. This guide walks you through all four, step by step.
The old way was slow, costly and shut people out
For most Africans, investing across borders meant USD accounts, correspondent banks, days of delay and settlement risk. ContiSX rebuilds it around your local currency and settlement certainty.
- Sell securities just to raise cash
- Days of paperwork & credit committees
- Need offshore USD + correspondent banks
- Settlement risk — legs can fail apart
- Borrow against holdings — keep them
- Instant, live collateral assessment
- Pay & get paid in your own currency
- Atomic DvP — both legs, or neither
What is a CSD? Your account for investments
A Central Securities Depository is to your investments what a bank account is to your money — a safe, official place that records what you own.
A trade, end to end — order to settled holding
From the moment you place an order through clearing, DvP settlement, and your updated portfolio — every step in the full lifecycle.
You submit a buy or sell order on ContiSX, priced in your local currency.
The order matches against the central order book and executes at a price.
The executed trade is captured and a confirmation is issued to both counterparties.
Funds are committed and debited in your own currency from your local account.
Cross-currency flows are netted and routed between banks on central-bank rails.
Net securities and cash obligations are calculated across the day's trades.
Exposures and margin are validated before anything moves to settlement.
Cleared obligations move to settlement — the security and the cash are readied to change hands under the depository's rules.
The depository debits the seller and credits your securities sub-account — your position updated on the official register, no paper certificates.
The securities leg and the cash leg move at the very same instant — atomically. Both settle, or neither does.
The completed trade and your new holdings appear in your ContiSX portfolio in real time — final and irreversible.
Settlement: cash and securities swap together
Every trade has two halves. The CSD makes them move at the same instant, so no one is left short. This is atomic Delivery-versus-Payment (DvP).
Money leaves your own bank account in your currency (₦, KSh, ₵…). No offshore USD account needed.
The bond/bill lands in your CSD sub-account — final the moment cash is confirmed.
Four guarantees that make it work
Your assets are held safely — and stay yours
Custody means a regulated institution safeguards your securities. On ContiSX, they sit in your own segregated sub-account — never mixed with anyone else's.
What you can hold and trade
Five asset classes, all settling into the same CSD account. Yields and tenors below are illustrative.
Credit: borrow without selling what you own
Need cash but don't want to sell? Use your securities as collateral and borrow against their value — you keep the securities and keep earning their yield.
Lock securities held in your CSD as collateral.
Each asset is valued live and given a loan-to-value.
Draw up to 80%, paid straight to your local balance.
Repay on tenor and your securities release in full.
How much can you borrow? It depends on the asset
Safer, more stable assets let you borrow more. The loan-to-value (LTV) is the share of an asset's value you can draw as cash.
Example: ₦10m of T-bills → borrow up to ₦8m instantly, while the bills keep paying their yield.
Credit Marketplace: name your rate, then negotiate
Instant credit gives you a set rate. The marketplace lets you negotiate directly — borrowers and lenders post offers and counter back and forth until they agree.
Borrowers request funds against CSD collateral; lenders post capital with their rate.
Counter back and forth — the order book shows both sides' live rates.
Agree a rate and borrow — every deal is collateral-backed in custody.
Liquidity Notes: turn real trade into an investment
Businesses are owed money for goods already delivered (invoices, receivables, trade finance). A Liquidity Note packages those real, performing claims into a credit-backed security you can buy.
- Backed by real receivables from highly-rated companies
- Short tenor (~180 days) — not locked for years
- Regulated, listed and tradable on ContiSX
Attractive short-term yield (~14.5%), low minimums, and it settles into your CSD like any security — so you can also borrow against it.
How a Liquidity Note pays you
A rated company is owed ₦100 in 90 days for goods it already shipped.
You pay ₦97 today for that claim — settled into your CSD account.
~90 days pass; the underlying invoice is performing and tracked.
The claim is paid; the ₦3 difference is your yield (~12%+ annualised).
The words, in one line each
One account: hold → settle → borrow → earn
In one line: ContiSX gives any African investor a single, regulated account to own securities, settle trades in their own currency, raise cash without selling, and earn yield from real trade.