Investor stampede for Dangote Refinery shares crashes another of Nigeria’s most popular investment apps as Africa’s biggest IPO takes off

Yesterday, Business Insider Africa reported about the crashes of Bamboo app as investors scramble to get a share of Dangote IPO, and now Cowrywise, another one of Nigeria’s most popular investment platforms, has reportedly suffered a breakdown under a massive wave of traffic.

• Cowrywise crashed due to unprecedented investor traffic during the Dangote IPO retail subscription opening.
• The Dangote Petroleum Refinery shares were offered at ₦525 each, attracting millions of potential retail investors nationwide.
• The trading surge left many users unable to access their accounts or see recent deposits, sparking frustration and complaints online.
• Experts noted that fintech platforms struggled with the demand, while traditional banks remained stable during the high activity.

As retail subscription opened on the Nigerian Stock Exchange for the Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals FZE offering, an unprecedented stampede of retail buyers overwhelmed digital trading systems.

Offered at ₦525 per share with an accessible minimum threshold of ₦5,250 for 10 shares, the deal targets up to 10 million retail investors across the nation.

Cowrywise faces downtime as investor stampede overwhelms trading app

The dramatic surge in trading volume left numerous first-time investors completely locked out of their accounts during peak market hours.

DON’T MISS THIS: More than $7 million poured into Dangote Refinery’s $1.6 billion IPO within its first hour

Voicing frustration online, retail investor dubbed Mo Kane on X reported, “I made a deposit, it was successful but it didn’t reflect on the cowrywise app. What’s going on???”.

Another X user, Classic Blogger, appealed directly to the company on social media, stating, “The real truth is I’m not even trying to buy shares I just want to see my money @cowrywise”.

As reported by Business Day, fintech specialist May Codegidi explained that, “It’s at times like this you get to know the difference between fintechs and battle hardened banks. Dangote IPO is live and basically every fintech offering is unable to handle the traffic, whereas, for the banks, just feels like another Monday”.

In response to the outage, the platform issued an official statement across its social media channels to address affected customers.

DON’T MISS THIS: ₦2.15 trillion is on the table for Nigerians as Dangote Refinery sounds the gong on 4.1 billion new ordinary shares

The company acknowledged the unexpected traffic spike, assuring users by stating, “We’re currently seeing more traffic than usual on the Cowrywise app. Our team is already on it and working to get things back to normal. Thanks for your patience, everyone”.

Few hours after, the investment platform also posted that “We are back up now!“.

It is worth noting that Cowrywise is only one of 40 approved banks, fintechs and mobile operators through which investors can buy Dangote Refinery IPO shares. For the benefit of potential investors, Business Insider Africa has published a list of all 40 approved platforms.