THE low awareness of the majority of Filipinos on investing in the stock market prevents the growth of online trading, said an executive of a leading stock-market broker.
“The major challenge in online trading is more the familiarization of the general public about investing in the stock market rather than learning to use the platform to invest online.
That is why for the past seven years, COL has allocated a large amount of its resource in educating the retail investor about investing in the market,” said Conrado Bate Jr., CEO and president of COL Financial Group Inc. in an email interview with the BusinessMirror.
Based on the latest survey conducted by the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) in 2013, less than one percent of the country’s population invests in the stock market. Bate said this is still relatively very small compared to the more developed markets in the Asean which has around 10 percent of the population investing in stocks.
Based on COL’s strong growth in its customer base in the past eight years, Bate said online trading is now the standard on how a retail investor accesses the stock market. As long as interest rates remain low, Bate said the growth in the number of stock-market investors will continue as more and more of the traditional fixed-income investors look for better options to enhance their returns.
“Bulk of our business comes from trading related revenues through the use of our online platform. As we offer more investment products and services through our platform we expect to expand our reach even further,” said Bate.
Bate said COL will continue to broaden its relationship with their clients by expanding the online-based products and services with the primary objective of helping them build their financial assets. Bate said COL will also zero in on the millennial generation as part of building their client base. Since the current generation is a heavy user of gadgets and social media, he said it would be easier for the company to use the internet also to invest as their disposable income increases.
Moreover, Bate said COL is going to push the advocacy of investing in the stock market to the segment of the youth and young professionals.
“This segment of the market is definitely also part our advocacy to educate each and every Filipino on why they should invest and how to do it wisely in the stock market. We currently have a working relationship with the different leading school organizations to help the youth get into the investment habit at an early age,” he said.