Lecture 7 (Chapter 1). Licensed JSE Brokers for Real Investors
In this lecture we will review licensed brokers in South Africa.
Thandiwe Mbeki
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You now understand what a share is, how the JSE works, and the difference between real investing and trading. So where do you actually go to buy a real share?
South Africa has dozens of JSE-authorised brokers, but for a beginner starting "from zero," four stand out as genuinely accessible, well-established, and squarely built for real ownership rather than speculation. Two are independent digital platforms; two are built directly into major banks.
EasyEquities is the most beginner-friendly on this list. It's a purpose-built investing app (not a bank add-on), operated by First World Trader (Pty) Ltd, an authorised financial services provider linked to the JSE. There's no stated minimum deposit, so you can genuinely start with whatever small amount you have. One nuance worth remembering from Lesson 6: buying a whole share makes you the real, registered owner — but very small (fractional) purchases are structured as a CFD contract with EasyEquities itself, since you can't literally own a fraction of a physical share.
Sharenet Securities is the one of South Africa's oldest independent stockbrokers (running since 1988), regulated by the FSCA. Its online account carries a monthly account-administration fee rather than a large upfront minimum, making it a solid step up once you're past the very beginning and want a dedicated brokerage relationship, research tools, and a broader product range.
FNB Share Investing - built directly into FNB's banking app and Online Banking. If you already bank with FNB, this is the most frictionless option: their "Shares Zero" account has no minimum balance and no monthly fee at all for investing in JSE Top 40 shares and ETFs.
Standard Bank - similarly bank-integrated, through AutoShare Invest (recurring investments from as little as R250/month, directly inside Internet Banking) or the fuller Online Share Trading platform for broader JSE access. Run by SBG Securities, an authorised JSE user.
The common thread: all four are properly licensed to place real, ownership-based orders on the JSE. None of them are CFD-only trading platforms (even though some, like Sharenet, separately offer CFD trading under a different product name — worth remembering not to confuse the two, as we covered in Lesson 6).
In the next two lessons, we'll walk through exactly how to open an account with each - step by step.