JSE Group CEO Dr Leila Fourie (left), interviewed on stage at AWS Summit by managing director and VP of AWS EMEA is Tanuja Randery.
(Photo: Lindsey Schutters) 
For years, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange has been caricatured as a market in freefall, haemorrhaging companies in what commentators call a “delisting crisis.”
However, as Chief Information Officer Tebalo Tsoaeli suggests, that narrative is too one-sided. Rather than obsessing over exits, he points to a quiet but meaningful recovery in new listings; progress driven by regulatory reforms and a technological overhaul that is streamlining how companies engage with the bourse.
“Since last year, we have seen significant improvement leading into this year as well, where we continue to see more listings come through,” Tsoaeli said, crediting the JSE’s “enhanced listing requirements” and simplified rules for removing much of the red tape that once deterred issuers.
Read more: JSE proposes amendments to listing requirements to shore up ailing stock exchange
On the technology side, he highlights the role of generative AI in speeding up listing approvals: “We certainly see this utilisation of GenAI tools in the issuer regulation space positioning us to be a lot more efficient in terms of turnaround times.”
In other words: the JSE may not be stuck in crisis mode at all.
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An uncomfortable truth
Facts are facts, and the JSE has been bleeding companies for two decades. From a peak of more than 600 listings in the early 2000s, it now hosts fewer than 300. CEO Dr Leila Fourie calls the delisting trend “existential”.
At last week’s AWS (Amazon Web Services) Summit in Johannesburg, she unveiled a turnaround plan built on partnerships with Nasdaq and AWS, and a heavy dose of artificial intelligence.
The goal: modernise infrastructure, cut costs and make the bourse more attractive to companies that might otherwise avoid or exit public markets.
“The JSE is the heartbeat of South Africa’s capital markets. We facilitate trading activity of R27-billion per day,” Fourie told the audience. “But ultimately, you can’t pause while you reinvent yourself. You have to lead while you run.”
The delistings have been brutal. Heavyweights like Distell and Pioneer Foods disappeared into foreign acquisitions, while smaller firms cited regulatory costs as the final straw. Less liquidity means wider spreads, lower valuations and more takeovers – a vicious cycle.
JSE listings and delistings – 2019 to 2023
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/JSE-listings-and-delistings.jpg "(Source: Denker Capital)")
AI to the rescue
Much of the JSE’s plumbing still runs on a 37-year-old Broker Dealer Accounting (BDA) system written in Cobol. Maintaining it depends on retirees and technicians close to retirement. “It is not a technology that is being taken up by youngsters,” Tsoaeli told Daily Maverick in an interview after the summit.
The exchange is migrating to Java-based systems on AWS, using generative AI to translate millions of lines of Cobol. “We’ve finished the first stage, which is our proof of concept, and that has gone remarkably well,” said Fourie. “We have five million lines of code to translate. We’ve done half a million already.”
The AI doesn’t just rewrite code. It generates long-lost test cases and documentation, slashing what once required armies of analysts.
Beyond infrastructure, the JSE is testing AI on scanning company financials and checking compliance with listing requirements. “It alleviates the burden of that whole manual process,” Tsoaeli explained, “and frees up analyst time.”
What this means for you
Fewer listed companies means less choice and liquidity. The JSE’s tech push could make it easier, and perhaps safer, to trade, but it won’t fix weak returns if the economy stays sluggish.
The new “general segment” and simplified rules could make listing less painful. But the costs and scrutiny of being public still loom large.
A healthier JSE is good for South Africa. It channels savings into productive investment. Its decline risks more capital flight and fewer opportunities for local investors.
Nasdaq, AWS and the gateway to Africa
The exchange is also banking on global partnerships. A memorandum with Nasdaq, enabled by AWS, envisions Johannesburg as a tech hub linking African and US markets.
“The JSE and South African market, as well as the US market can, easily and without friction, trade and expand pools of liquidity,” Fourie said.
Tsoaeli, meanwhile, frames it as continental ambition: “We’re not only focusing on our local markets but also extending our offering to market participants across Africa.”
Trading fees are no longer enough. The JSE has launched Colo 2.0, an infrastructure-as-a-service platform, and JSE Fix, which gives clients access to global markets through a single entry point. “We are significantly investing in unlocking non-trading revenue income streams,” Tsoaeli said.
These pivots acknowledge the obvious: to survive, the JSE must become more like a fintech infrastructure company.
Cutting the red tape with high tech
Alongside technology, the exchange is rewriting the rulebook. Initiatives like the “simplification project” have lifted shareholder approval thresholds, introduced a lighter regulatory segment for smaller companies and translated listing rules into plain English.
Still, most of the new arrivals are corporate unbundlings rather than fresh IPOs.
But for all the talk of AI and cloud, technology alone cannot conjure growth in a stagnant economy. South Africa’s policy uncertainty and anaemic GDP remain the biggest deterrents to public listings.
Read more: The JSE 100k milestone that broke our market table
The JSE’s strategy of modernise, simplify, globalise at least buys time. It also signals to investors and issuers that the exchange is fighting back. But whether it can escape the gravity of its delisting spiral depends on forces well beyond its servers.
As Fourie put it: “Operational strength and resilience earns us the right to transform the future.” The question is whether that future is vibrant or simply a more efficient decline. DM