The Nairobi Securities Exchange and ZSE Holdings each earn their profit from a single engine. At the NSE the engine is one Safaricom block trade, whose levy receivable of Kshs 490 million equals about 40% of first half income. At ZSE Holdings the engine is the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange, which produced 75% of group operating profit on 36% of group trading value. The markets that carry the most trading in each group, Kenyan bonds and the ZSE main board, earn the least from each additional dollar traded. Depth and profit therefore sit in different parts of both exchanges, which is why neither group's earnings measure how broad its market has become. The question for Harare is whether the main board and the instruments around it can earn revenue before VFEX turnover returns to the level of the second half of 2025, and Nairobi supplies the evidence on which instruments can help.

Exchange revenue equals trading value multiplied by revenue per dollar traded, and the second term differs sharply across instruments and venues. The NSE levy took 0.239% of equity turnover in both the first half of 2025 and the first half of 2026 and 0.011% of bond turnover in both periods, so equities pay 22 times the bond rate and levy income followed turnover one for one. VFEX revenue per dollar traded moved from 1.17% to 1.12% as turnover rose 126% and revenue rose 116%. ZSE main board turnover rose 209% and its external revenue rose 11.5%, which took revenue per dollar traded from 2.83% to 1.02% and left the added US$198 million of trading carrying US$310,000 of added revenue, or 0.16%.

Nairobi's engine is a trade and Harare's engine is a venue

The Safaricom levy sits in other assets, which rose Kshs 593 million, and operating cash flow reached Kshs 161 million, or 22% of profit after tax. Excluding the block trade, equity turnover grew 111% and total income grew 41%. Expenses held at Kshs 310 million, so the levy dropped through to profit and lifted the operating margin before credit losses to 74.4% from 39.4%.

At ZSE Holdings the VFEX segment earned an operating margin of 68.6% against 15.1% on the ZSE segment. VFEX added US$1.10 million of income against US$51,000 of added cost, an incremental margin of 95%, and its exemption from corporate income tax holds the group effective tax rate at 5.0%. VFEX trading value ran at US$73.5 million in the first half of 2025, about US$38 million in the second half and US$166.4 million in the first half of 2026, so the venue carrying three quarters of operating profit has halved and then quadrupled within twelve months.

Kenyan bonds and the ZSE main board carry most of the trading and little of the profit

Kenyan bonds took 84% of NSE turnover at Kshs 1.703 trillion, up 22%, and produced 15.5% of income. Derivatives turnover reached Kshs 637 million from Kshs 34 million after the NSE cut single stock futures contract sizes and market makers deepened participation, which is 0.2% of equity turnover. Income outside the equity levy grew 16% to Kshs 440 million in a half in which the equity levy grew 476%. Data income grew 29% to Kshs 75.2 million and listing fees grew 37% to Kshs 45.6 million, and listing fees supplied 3.8% of income, so new issuers pay through the trading they attract over time.

The ZSE main board carries 64% of group trading value, produces 61% of group income and earns 25% of segment operating profit. Market capitalisation of US$4.01 billion on the ZSE and US$3.83 billion on VFEX puts main board turnover at 7.3% of value in the half and VFEX turnover at 4.3%, so the more actively traded venue relative to its size earns the lower margin.

Stability supports trading and the currency of revenue decides where issuers list

ZWG inflation held below 5% in every month of the half, printing 4.7% in June against a peak of 95.8% in July 2025, and the ZSE All Share Index gained 50% over the half. Stability sustained main board trading, and the share of revenue earned in US dollars kept rising, reaching 89% at First Mutual Holdings from 85% a year earlier. First Mutual Properties voted to delist, TSL committed to migrate to VFEX and Tanganda is evaluating the same move, and VFEX added five listings in the half and guides at least three more before year end. Each dollar of trading that moves from the main board to VFEX moves from a segment earning 0.16 cents of operating profit to one earning 0.81 cents, so group operating profit per dollar traded rises as trading migrates.

Main board trading costs of 4.15% compare with 2.32% on VFEX, and a capital gains tax differential separates the two venues. The group earns about the same per dollar on both venues, 1.0 cents on the ZSE and 1.1 cents on VFEX, so the 1.83 percentage point gap in trading costs arises from charges outside the group's own revenue. ZEEX leaves that gap and the ZWG pricing of the main board unchanged.

In Nairobi the shilling held between KES 129 and 130 to the dollar, the Central Bank Rate stayed at 8.75% and inflation reached 6.5% to 6.7%. The NSE links its listing pipeline to its partnership with the Government of Kenya on privatisation, infrastructure financing and enterprise growth. Its first half listings included the Kenya Pipeline Company IPO, which the NSE describes as ending an IPO drought of more than a decade, and Family Bank, which it describes as its largest private sector listing in more than a decade.

ZSE Holdings launched ZEEX in July with four products, Private Markets, Public Markets, Invoice X for unpaid invoice finance and ZSE Debtbridge for secured debt. The group names pipeline crystallisation as its principal second half focus, with anchor investors from the development finance community still being engaged. It capitalised ZEEX development costs within intangible assets of US$1.16 million and impaired an internally developed commodities exchange platform by US$106,085 after intangible impairments of US$320,233 in 2025. Kenya's GEMS segment for smaller companies drew low uptake for years after its simplified rules took effect, and the missing element was an investor base.

Neither group earns from the part of its market that does not need a rally

Both groups earn their profit from the instrument whose turnover moves most with sentiment. The equity levy supplied 64% of NSE income, and income outside it grew 16% in a half in which the levy grew 476%. VFEX supplied 75% of ZSE Holdings operating profit, and the main board carrying 64% of trading value earned 25% of it. The binding constraint is revenue conversion on the stable base of each market, which is bonds in Nairobi and the main board in Harare.

VFEX turnover near US$85 million per half marks where the engine stops outearning the main board

At the first half revenue rate and a fixed VFEX cost base, VFEX operating profit equals the ZSE segment's US$457,000 at about US$85 million of turnover per half, which is 51% of the first half level. At that point group operating profit falls to about US$0.91 million. The base case holds if VFEX turnover stays above US$85 million in each of the next two halves and the three guided listings arrive. The adverse path puts turnover below that line, which the group chief executive's warning that trading could normalise from unusually strong levels makes plausible, and the second half of 2025 traded near US$38 million. At the NSE each Kshs 10 billion of equity turnover earns Kshs 23.9 million of levy, so a return to the first half 2025 turnover of Kshs 56 billion leaves the levy at Kshs 134 million, 17% of the Kshs 770.5 million earned. Both tests read out in the FY2026 results and the first half 2027 interims.

ZSE Holdings holds US$2.27 million of cash against US$1.63 million of current liabilities, a surplus of US$0.64 million, and owes US$300,000 of commercial paper at 12% on 18 February 2027 after approving an interim dividend of US$339,922, equal to 20% of profit. Every dollar committed to ZEEX liquidity support leaves less cover for a VFEX turnover reversal and for that maturity.

ZSE Holdings can fund ZEEX liquidity from its US$0.64 million surplus only against closed placements

Smaller tickets and committed market makers widen participation, and the NSE derivatives result supports that for one half year on a base equal to 0.2% of equity turnover, which leaves revenue durability untested. In Zimbabwe ZEEX securities trade in ZWG, the group chairman places the gap to the parallel market near 20%, and the US$0.64 million surplus caps what the group can commit from its own balance sheet. The evidence supports a ZEEX anchor and market making facility in which development finance institutions underwrite the first two placements and ZSE Holdings releases its own capital in tranches against closed placements, up to the surplus. The first order effect is a two way market on ZEEX Public Markets from its first listing day. The second order effect is an issuer base that graduates to the main board or VFEX, which adds listings to both venues without waiting for migrations and reduces dependence on VFEX turnover.

Nairobi's bond turnover grew 22% in a half when equity turnover grew 476%, and the 0.011% levy makes debt a depth and data product. CBZ plans a US$600 million bond programme on VFEX beginning with a US$100 million tranche, and at the NSE bond levy a tranche that size turned over once earns US$11,000. The programme therefore tests whether VFEX can host debt trading and cannot be expected to lift group profit at that rate.