PSE, SEC to launch new products

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE), already enjoying robust investor participation, is launching investment products and reforms this year to entice more investors.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), for its part, said it will support the PSE through its own reforms.

“We will launch all of our new products, make sure we have a larger menu of options,” PSE president and CEO Hans B. Sicat told reporters at the Annual Bankers’ Night of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

For instance, the PSE will launch the Online Service Bureau (OSB) in March, Sicat said. It will encourage brokerage houses to offer online trading services to the investing public.

In three years, Sicat said the PSE expects that 20 percent of the total market transactions will be facilitated by brokerage firms that offer investors with online retail accounts.

Traditionally, stock trading in the Philippines has been done through brokers, in person or over the phone.

In 2011, online investor accounts surged 48.4 percent to 52,750 from 35,559 in 2010 as more brokerage firms offered online trading capabilities.

For the exchange-traded funds (ETF), Sicat said PSE is in active discussions with various banks that will offer the new investment instrument in the first quarter.

“I think in about two weeks we will be able to consolidate all the comments and finalize it,” Sicat said.

The PSE earlier released the draft rules for the listing of ETF, which is a security that monitors a commodity of assets like an index fund but trades like a normal stock in an exchange.

SEC is already preparing the forms for the companies that will set up an ETF, said SEC chairperson Teresita J. Herbosa.

In terms of initial public offerings, Sicat said the first for this year will be Philippine Business Bank’s P4.25-billion share sale, which will likely be followed by an industrial firm.