Democratising capital markets: Why we built Timiza plus fund, Zan Timiza ETF

DAR ES SALAAM: LAST week, at the Julius Nyerere International Convention Centre (JNICC) in Dar es Salaam, we officially launched two new investment products into the Tanzanian market: The Timiza Plus Fund and the Zan Timiza ETF.

Both opened for public subscription on the same day, addressing a question we have asked since launching our first scheme, the Timiza Fund, in May 2024: How can we make it easier for ordinary Tanzanians and East Africans to participate in capital markets rather than watch from the sidelines?

That question was also the theme of the panel we convened at the launch, “Democratising Capital Markets in East Africa,” which brought together voices from Financial Sector Deepening Tanzania, investment banks in Kenya, a pension fund and a financial educator.

We were honoured to have Zanzibar Minister for Finance and Planning, Dr Juma Malik Akil, who delivered the keynote and officiated the launch, alongside senior representatives of the Capital Markets and Securities Authority (CMSA), the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange (DSE), and our custodian, NMB Bank PLC.

Why we built two products, not one

Anyone who has tried to invest in East Africa knows the landscape is fragmented.

Unit trusts, money market funds, individual stocks and bonds all sit as separate products, often requiring investors to do their own research, pick their own mix, and manage the rebalancing themselves.

We also hear a recurring need from the people who already use our products: Many investors, retirees, households managing recurring bills and businesses with seasonal cash flow, are not primarily chasing growth; they need dependable, periodic income.

Serving both kinds of investor well requires more than one product.

That is why we built two: The Timiza Plus Fund for income, and the Zan Timiza ETF for diversified, exchange-traded growth.

What a “fund of funds” actually is

Because this is a new structure for Tanzania, it is worth explaining plainly. A fund of funds (FoF) is a collective investment scheme that, rather than buying shares and bonds directly, invests in a basket of other funds.

The manager researches, selects and monitors those underlying funds on the investor’s behalf, so a single investment gives exposure to many portfolios at once.

When that fund-of-funds structure is also listed and traded on a stock exchange as an Exchange Traded Fund, investors get a second benefit: The ability to buy and sell their holding throughout the trading day at a market-determined price, rather than waiting for end-of-day valuations, as with a conventional unit trust.

The Zan Timiza ETF combines both features. It invests in a curated basket of top-performing East African collective investment schemes, and its own units will trade intraday on the DSE once the Initial Sale closes.

Timiza Plus Fund: Income, engineered to be predictable

The Timiza Plus Fund is an openended unit trust built for investors who want steady cash flow without giving up capital growth entirely.

We weight the portfolio toward stable, income-generating assets, with a minimum of 50 per cent in fixed-income instruments such as Treasury bonds, corporate bonds and money-market instruments, with the balance in listed DSE equities. We do not invest in unlisted equity.

Every quarter, we pay the fund’s distributable surplus to unit holders who have remained invested for at least three months, within ten business days of quarter-end. We priced units at 100/- each and set the minimum entry at 1,000,000/, with top-ups possible from as little as 10,000/-.

Zan Timiza ETF: One listed security, built for broader access The Zan Timiza ETF is our next step in widening access. It is Tanzania’s first multi-jurisdictional Fund of Funds ETF.

We invest roughly half the portfolio in a curated basket of top-performing East African collective investment schemes, with the remainder invested directly in fixed income, listed equities and cash.

We designed this to give investors two layers of diversification through a single listed security: Exposure to a spread of professionally selected regional funds and diversification within each fund’s underlying holdings.

Unlike the Timiza Plus Fund, the ETF does not distribute income. Returns compound automatically back into the fund, making it better suited to investors focused on long-term growth. We set its entry point at 20,000/- for 200 units.

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A track record behind the pitch

We are not launching these products on faith. The Timiza Fund, our first scheme, has grown from 10.3bn/- to 50bn/- in assets under management since May 2024, a 404 per cent increase, while serving more than 13,000 investors and delivering a 15 per cent annualised return in 2025.

We are carrying the same discipline into these two new funds. Both charge no entry or exit load and cap total annual charges at roughly 2.1 per cent of net asset value.

How the region is doing and why it matters

We are not launching in a vacuum. Tanzania’s economy has been one of the stronger performers on the continent.

Real GDP growth reached 6.0 per cent in 2025, while the Bank of Tanzania, IMF and African Development Bank project growth of roughly 5.4–6.3 per cent for 2026, with inflation contained within the central bank’s 3–5 per cent target range.

East Africa remains one of the continent’s fastest-growing regions, with regional GDP growth estimated at 6.6 per cent in 2025.

Tanzania’s capital markets have also been expanding rapidly. The DSE reported total market capitalisation of 35.18tri/- at the end of the first half of 2026, a 79.1 per cent year-on-year increase.

The exchange also marked its 30th anniversary in July 2026 after surpassing 870,000 investors and mobilising 1.585tri/- through equity issuances since inception.

The DSE has set an ambition of reaching 1 million investors by the end of 2026 and 10 million by 2032. At the same time, regional integration is accelerating.

The East African Community is expanding its Capital Markets Infrastructure project to electronically link stock exchanges across Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan and the DRC.

Even with this growth, Tanzania’s capital market remains relatively small compared with the size of its economy.

We see that less as a warning than as an indication of the room available for markets and investors to grow.

Why we think this is the right moment Put together, we believe this is a good time to put capital to work in Tanzania: An economy growing faster than many peers, inflation under control, a stock exchange posting strong growth, and regulators and exchanges working to widen retail participation.

Two products opening on the same day, one built for income and one for diversified growth, are our attempt to meet that moment with investment options that more Tanzanians can access.

How to take part

The Initial Sale Period for both products runs from August 17 to September 17, 2026.

Applications can be made through any NMB branch, the NMB Mkononi app, any licensed dealing member of the DSE, or the Zan Invest mobile app.