Bamboo, Cowrywise struggle as Dangote IPO opens

Nigerians rushing to buy shares in Dangote Petroleum Refinery on Monday struggled to access the IPO through Bamboo and Cowrywise, two of the fintech platforms approved to sell the offer.

Users reported login problems, slow-loading apps and error messages as the offer opened. Both platforms acknowledged the disruption on X and said they were working to restore access.

The problems exposed the gap between the demand the platforms expected and the traffic they had to handle. The IPO had been marketed as a way for ordinary Nigerians to own a stake in Africa’s largest oil refinery.

The fintechs had also spent weeks promoting the offer to their customers.

Bamboo opened more than 236,000 new accounts in the week leading up to the IPO, the company told TechCabal. About 152,000, or 64%, were funded and trading within the same week.

That figure was higher than Bamboo’s previous monthly record for new accounts. The company recorded 172,000 signups in May.

“We’re genuinely disappointed and sad that we aren’t giving our community the user experience that we’re known for,” a Bamboo spokesperson told TechCabal.

The company said its engineering team was working to restore the platform. It had spent the previous two to three months preparing its systems for the expected demand.

Screenshot of error message on Bamboo app. Image source: TechCabal

“We anticipated a large wave of demand and prepared our systems accordingly over the last 2-3 months, but ultimately that did not happen,” the spokesperson said.

Cowrywise also experienced slower response times after the IPO opened. The company said it had restored its app after about an hour.

“As anticipated, the IPO launch generated a significant surge in traffic today,” a Cowrywise spokesperson told TechCabal. “The offer window for the IPO remains open until October 13, and customers who experienced issues can retry their subscription directly on the app now.”

The Dangote Refinery IPO opened on September 14. It offers 4.1 billion shares at ₦525 each, with a minimum subscription of 10 shares, or ₦5,250.

Dangote Petroleum Refinery is seeking to raise ₦2.15 trillion from the offer. The funds are expected to support the refinery’s expansion and increase its crude-processing capacity from about 700,000 barrels per day to 1.4 million barrels per day.

The low minimum investment has helped bring first-time investors into the offer. Nigerians can subscribe through approved fintechs, banks and mobile-money operators.

The disruption, however, does not mean investors who could not access the platforms on Monday have missed their opportunity.

The offer remains open until October 13. Bamboo also said allocations will not be based on who subscribes first.

If demand exceeds the number of shares available, the shares will be allocated on a pro-rata basis. Investors who receive fewer shares than they requested will get refunds for the unallocated portion.

Bamboo said it expects demand to continue throughout the offer period.

“We don’t expect that everyone will want to buy IPO shares today,” the company said. “We expect many investors to buy at the end of the month when they receive salary as well as the end of the IPO on October 13.”

For the fintechs, Monday’s disruption raises a more immediate question: whether the infrastructure used to market mass-market investment products can handle the demand those campaigns generate.

Bamboo said it had recorded a 350% increase in new users ahead of the IPO. It had expected its infrastructure to cope based on how the platform handled previous surges in NGX activity.

That preparation proved insufficient when the Dangote IPO opened.

“We were optimistic about giving our users a reliable experience based on how our systems handled a surge in new NGX users in the past,” Bamboo said. “But ultimately that did not happen, and we’re making sure this never happens again.”

With the offer still open, investors are now looking for other approved platforms through which they can subscribe before the October 13 deadline.