Nairobi Securities Exchange Teams With Tether to Test USDT Settlement Across $26.4B Market

Expansion of Digital Assets

The Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) and digital asset company Tether have signed a memorandum of understanding to explore asset tokenization, blockchain-based settlement, and investor education across Kenya’s financial market.

The partnership aims to modernize Kenya’s capital market infrastructure using distributed ledger technology (DLT). Under the agreement, the two organizations plan to test instant settlement mechanisms and fractionalized security trading through Hadron, Tether’s asset tokenization platform, catering to both local and diaspora investors.

The agreement with Tether comes amid a broader push by the exchange to integrate digital assets into its trading ecosystem. In 2024, the exchange entered into a memorandum of understanding with exchange-traded product issuer Valour Inc. and Sovfi Inc. to facilitate the creation, issuance, and trading of digital asset exchange-traded products (ETPs). That collaboration aimed to deploy new financial products and passport Valour’s ETPs onto the Nairobi bourse to broaden its investor base and enhance liquidity.

Under the Tether agreement, the initiative will also focus on streamlining anti-money laundering (AML) and know your customer (KYC) onboarding processes tailored to Kenya’s regulatory environment. Additionally, both parties plan to assess the viability of using USDT as a digital settlement infrastructure layer to increase liquidity.

To support retail and institutional adoption, Tether and the exchange will roll out structured knowledge-transfer programs, including workshops and training sessions for NSE-listed brokers and retail investor groups.

“The use cases for digital assets are evolving, from crypto into real-life applications and, ultimately, cross-border institutional finance,” Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said in a statement. “Our goal is to streamline operations and enable efficient, transparent, accountable, and sustainable processes, while protecting data and privacy.”

The collaboration aligns with the exchange’s 2025–2029 strategic plan to expand market access and modernize trading infrastructure.

“By collaborating with Tether, we are exploring innovative technologies that have the potential to modernize market infrastructure, enhance operational efficiency, and broaden investor access while maintaining the highest standards of market integrity and regulatory compliance,” said Frank Mwiti, chief executive officer of the exchange.

Established in 1954, the NSE is one of Africa’s prominent financial markets, with a market capitalization of approximately $26.4 billion. The exchange offers trading facilities for equities, debt securities, and derivatives, and is a member of the Association of Futures Markets and a partner exchange in the United Nations-led Sustainable Stock Exchanges initiative.