The move is to create access for foreign investors looking to tap into markets on the continent.

Garth Klintworth, head of markets for Barclays Africa Group, said its subsidiary Absa Nigeria had acquired a securities licence in Nigeria, part of a wider plan to increase its presence in West Africa’s biggest economy.

Nigeria’s stock exchange, the third largest in Africa, has in the last few years said it was reviewing applications from leading global investment banks to join its trading floor to increase foreign investment in one of the world’s least tapped emerging markets.

“We have acquired a securities licence, stock broking licence and we have already employed people to bring those licences to effect,” Klintworth told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference in the commercial capital, Lagos.

The firm was also looking at openings in other markets on the continent.

“We are investigating what opportunities there are in Ivory Coast, Morocco and possibly Angola,” he said.

The chief executive of Barclays Africa, Maria Ramos, said in March the firm aimed to double its share of the African banking market to 12 percent over the medium term.

Barclays Africa is changing its name back to South African brand Absa after it split from former parent Barclays, he added.

Nigeria’s stock market gained strongly in January after rising 43 percent last year. However, some profit taking has depressed equities.

Klintworth said his firm had not seen foreign investors pull out of Nigeria due to rising interest rates in United States or effects of contagion in Italy. However, he said investors were rotating within emerging markets to tap into higher yields.

He said Barclays Africa had seen some flows into Nigeria in the first quarter of 2018, though most investors had opted to wait as they searched for higher yields.