PSE launches online trading platform

MANILA, Philippines - More investors can now trade and monitor stocks using their own computers and smartphones.

The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) is launching PSETradex, its Internet-based trading platform “directed at increasing the number of online investors in the stock market.”

In a statement, the local bourse said it successfully completed a series of test runs of the online trading system.

“We are pleased to inform our trading participants that they can now sign up for the PSETradex which they can offer to their clients,” said PSE president and CEO Hans B. Sicat.

Sicat said the new service will further expand the reach of the brokerage firms and boost activity in the stock market significantly.

To date, firms like AB Capital Securities Inc., COL Financial Group Inc., BPI Securities Corp., RCBC Securities Inc. and Accord Capital Equities Corp. offer online brokerage services.

PSETradex, a web-based trading management system, will allow users to trade shares of stocks, monitor the order status, manage their stock portfolio and gather relevant information using their own computers.

“It can provide mobile wireless application for equity trading, which operates on web-based mobile phones,” PSE said, adding that it will enable investors that are registered clients of stockbrokers to trade in a totally mobile environment.

Online investors have surged 42 percent annually in the past five years, PSE data showed. 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.

PSE tapped Malaysian securities trading solutions provider N2N Connect Berhad for the online trading platform.

N2N’s key management has been involved in the information and communication technology sector for more than 25 years, 10 years of which is in the financial industry.

N2N also has businesses in Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, China and Indonesia.

“We are now in discussions with Maybank-ATR KimEng Securities Inc. to be one of the first brokerage firms to avail of the PSETradex,” Sicat said.