Juicyway Gets SEC Approval in Principle for People’s Exchange

In Short

Juicyway says it has received approval in principle from Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission to build a blockchain based exchange.

The company says the platform will connect African assets with global investors.

What Happened: How Juicyway Plans To Build The People’s Exchange

Juicyway, which describes itself as a cross-border payments company, is building a platform to connect African assets with global investors, according to founder and chief executive Ife Johnson.

Speaking at Moonshot by TechCabal in Lagos, Johnson said the planned product is called the “People’s Exchange”. He said it would use tokenisation, which he described as creating blockchain based records of assets and securities, to help businesses raise money across markets.

Johnson said faster payments alone do not solve Africa’s financing problem. He said software can send a payment instruction in seconds, but the money to complete that payment still has to be sitting in the right currency and in the right country.

“For roughly 95% of the transactions that we have to carry out, we have to perform settlements,” Johnson said. He said the exchange’s first focus would be financing that liquidity. He said later uses could include mortgages, trade receivables, energy, commodities and stakes in private companies.

Why It Matters: Liquidity And Financing Across Fragmented Markets

Johnson’s argument is that shortages of capital show up across the wider economy. He said businesses hold receivables, projects need investment and households need long-term loans, but the capital to fund them is split across dozens of small markets.

He also argued that the ecosystem has created “category winners” without building “shared infrastructure”. “Africa needs more shared infrastructure and fewer isolated winners,” he said.

On trade finance, the African Development Bank’s 2025 trade finance report put Africa’s unmet demand for trade finance at between $74 billion and $92 billion in 2024.

TechCabal also reported that African companies raised about $220 billion in equity on local stock markets between 2000.