First Metro Securities sees mobile technology driving up retail investing in the Philippines

Stock broker First Metro Securities Brokerage Corp. said the number of individual investors will increase on rising income of Filipinos, growing awareness of opportunities in the stock market and the emergence of online and mobile platforms that make investing easier and more convenient.

Gonzalo Ordoñez, the company’s president, said the market for retail investing is still young as the Philippine economy is only starting to expand.

“As we see the growing trend of more retail investors participating in the stock market, we also see the volume increasing over the coming years. With this in mind, we will continue to move forward to help change the way people invest and save money,” Ordoñez said.

According to the 2014 data of the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE), less than 1 percent of the estimated 100 million Filipinos invested in the stock market.

The Philippines still has a long way to go before achieving widespread domestic investor participation in the stock market, the broker said.

It said, however, the number of online investor accounts, which are mainly individuals, are increasing.

Based on the PSE’s 2014 Stock Market Investor Profile reports, online investor accounts registered a five-year compounded annual growth rate of 44 percent, compared to the overall investor base, which grew by an average of 6 percent in the past five years.

Online investors already constitute 27 percent of the total investor accounts base, coming from just 7 percent in 2010.

With the trend of more retail investors participating in the stock market, the broker earlier launched a service that enables clients to borrow funds to buy stocks online using eligible securities as collateral. This provides clients with the ability to take on more risk in order to take advantage of emerging trends or build a larger portfolio.

In 2013 the company launched the country’s first exchange-traded fund (ETF), which acts as a mutual fund that mirrors the performance of the benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index and trades like a stock on the PSE.

First Metro Securities is the market maker and an authorized participant of the said ETF.