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How Mesh made history in 2024

A look back on a landmark year for open capital markets.

We’ll remember 2024 as a landmark year on our journey to open capital markets. Mesh.trade hit several milestones this year, issuing Africa’s first tokenised corporate bond, listing three of Λnβro’s AMCs, and becoming the first fully licensed issuance platform in Africa to tokenise financial assets.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

In April Die MOS Uitreiker, a wholly owned subsidiary of private education group Die MOS Inisiatief, issued Die MOS 10Y Prime +2% Floating Rate Bond on Mesh.trade The Bond aimed to raise capital to expand Die MOS Inisiatief’s network of private schools offering mother-tongue education – which UNESCO recognises as a key factor for inclusion and quality learning.

Speaking to Afrikaans-language radio station RSG, economist Dawie Roodt highlighted how Mesh was giving more investors and issuers access to global markets through blockchain technology. “It’s new technology,” he said. “It’s the first time in Africa that such a so-called smart corporate bond is being issued, and I am very excited to be closely involved.”

Then came the big news. On 10 July 2024, South Africa’s Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) awarded Mesh a Crypto Asset Service Provider (CASP) licence, making ours the first fully licensed issuance platform in Africa to tokenise real world financial assets, like bonds, equities and funds.

The FCSA awarded Mesh full financial services provider (FSP) Category 1 and Category 2 licences, in what Bloem called a validation of Mesh’s commitment to democratising access to capital raising and investment opportunities. “Our licence means we are a fully regulated crypto asset platform that can facilitate the issuance, trade and management of tokenised financial assets,” she said. “This is an important milestone for the continent as the capital markets move inexorably into an era of Finance 3.0, which is defined by greater access, ease of use and transparency.”

The first quarterly coupon payment for the Die Mos bond notes was made to investors at the end of July, and investors were able to buy and sell existing bond notes amongst each other when the secondary market for the bond opened in August. The secondary market for Die MOS bond notes was very active from the start – which is highly unusual, given the nature of the asset. “With bonds, one would expect investors to buy and hold to maturity, which in the case of the MOS Bond is 2034,” said Marina Oosthuizen, Head of Platform Operations at Mesh.trade. “They’re typically not actively traded after issuance. For the issuer, that’s a clear indication that there’s a market for this kind of tokenised asset.”

In early August Mesh announced the launch of a R30-million capital raise for South African reverse mortgage provider Water Financial. This included the issuance of 30 000 “A” preference shares, which used the flexibility and tax efficiency inherent in preference shares to offer investors an attractive monthly dividend of 87% of the prime lending rate. Ultimately, the market spoke, and Water Financial’s offering was undersubscribed.

Meanwhile, investors were finding a growing range of options on the Mesh Marketplace. In September the Euro-backed EURC Stablecoin was made available for trading and transacting against popular stablecoins such as mZAR and USDC.

Stablecoins are a central element of the Finance 3.0 world. They’re highly regulated, and linked to fiat currencies. “EURC is designed for stability,” Bloem said. “It’s fully compliant with the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), and its Euro reserves are transparently held at regulated financial institutions in the European Economic Area. Like Mesh’s mZAR, EURC publishes monthly attestations conducted by a Big 4 accounting firm, for full transparency.”

While investors were enjoying more opportunities as the year ended, entrepreneurs and businesses were also tapping into Mesh.trade’s growing base of investors. In October boutique asset management firm Λnβro Capital Investments made three of its thematic global equity portfolios, in the form of actively managed certificates (AMC) available on Mesh.trade. Λnβro Unicorn Global Equity AMC, Λnβro World’s Biggest BRNDZ AMC, and Λnβro Dynamic Compound AMC each offer different levels of risk and return, and all are crafted for investors who have a capital-growth mindset and a long-term investment profile of at least 5 years.

The Λnβro AMCs offer an attractive hedge against rand volatility and the effects of imported inflation. “Even though we have a lot of amazing potential in our economy, inflation creates a huge burden on South Africans as investors,” said Λnβro CEO Justine’ Brophy. “These three portfolios are all global portfolios designed to help hedge imported inflation, so you’re growing your investment portfolio internationally.”

And so 2024 drew to a close, with Mesh well set to issue more alternative and private capital assets to investors in the new year. Watch this space for exciting news on new asset issuances, as well as another disruptive initiatives from the Mesh.trade team. A lot has happened in 2024, but our mission hasn’t changed: we’re committed to making capital markets easy to access, simple to use, and open to all.

Mesh. Open capital markets

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