The Lagos Commodities and Futures Exchange (LCFE) has indicated its readiness to partner Ecobank to enable the seamless settlement of trades across Africa as it starts trading in a few weeks.

Its Managing Director, Akin Akeredolu-Ale, stated that the Exchange needs a bank that has the required African spread and superior technology such as Ecobank that can support it to accomplish its mandate to formalise trade across the continent.

He said the LCFE is determined to give Africa trade the needed structure that will enable everyone measure and determine growth within the continent. This, he noted, would position Africa to compete better globally.

According to Akeredolu-Ale, partnering Ecobank will “enable us easily accomplish our vision of enabling trade across the continent. Ecobank had set up a technology that facilitates trade and currency exchange with its wide footprint across Africa and it is only natural for us to seek to partner with such an organisation”.

He listed the activities of the LCFE to include providing a trading platform for the exchange of agricultural, oil and gas, solid mineral and currency commodities

Ecobank Nigeria Managing Director, Patrick Akinwuntan said Ecobank’s unique and large pan-African platform positions the bank to support trade at all levels.

According to Akinwuntan, the bank’s technology platform is designed to help unlock the opportunities of the continent, through standardisation across 33 countries, thereby fueling regional integration, trade and investment across borders.

Akinwuntan praised the tenacity of the initiators of the LCFE in their quest to trade across the continent. He assured them of the bank’s support, noting that relevant regulators would be carried along.