i.t. matters
Friday-Saturday March 03-04, 2006 MANILA, PHILIPPINES
News
Online stock trading touted
With increased awareness, the Philippines is poised to become the next Asian hub for online trading.
Abroad, online trading has a substantial following in Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan, where online trading investors account for 26%, 81% and 70% of the total population, respectively.
In the Philippines, there are 50,000 to 60,000 who invest in stocks online.
But potential users could reach 250,000 provided there will be improvement in information dissemination, said Juanis G. Barredo, CitisecOnline.com, Inc. vice-president.
Put up in 1999 with capitalization of P320 million, CitisecOnline is one of the few online stock brokerages operating in the country.
Conrado Bate, CitisecOnline president, said online trading provides several benefits to users.
For one, the practice has leveled the playing field for stock market investors, where investors can take direct control of their investments, placing orders at their pace and at their desired price and time and investors can rely less on a personal broker who can manually process limited orders during peak trading hours.
In its website, key information such as most active stocks, the top 20 gainers and losers and heavily traded stocks are now being made available to online investors.
"Such information did not come easily or freely through the traditional stock broker routes," Mr. Bate said.
The company also offers online services such as automatic settlement of trade, off-hours trade placement and has a customer service center that assists clients in opening an account and site navigation, to name a few.
CitisecOnline said the present environment is supportive of online trading. Unlike before, the bellwether Philippines Stock Exchange now has a stronger regulation on online security as it is preparing to get into the online platform as well. Broadband penetration, a crucial component in its rollout, has also increased. -- Maricel E. Estavillo
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