For most South Africans, high-reward, wealth-creating opportunities such as investments have long been unattainable. However, with the economic strain of the past year weighing on many, the push for alternative income streams has never been greater.

When EasyEquities was launched in 2014, it aimed to break down barriers to investment by providing an innovative, low-cost investment platform. One of its early innovations was trading CFDs (contract for differences, an agreement between an investor and a broker to exchange the difference in the value of a financial product between the time the contract opens and closes). However, the company found that CFDs were too niche a market to scale, ‘and we wanted to change South Africa’s investment landscape’, says Almero Oosthuizen, business development, product & UX VP at EasyEquities.“