E*Trade has opened for business in South Africa, offering online trading of stocks and warrants listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange as well as market information provided by Reuters, BigCharts and local news vendors.
South Africa has approximately 30,000 online traders and more than 1.9 million Internet users, a number which has more than doubled every year since the Web became commercially available in 1994.
Initial plans to open a South African site in collaboration with E-data Holdings fell through earlier this year and E*Trade instead opted to proceed with the development as a wholly owned subsidiary.