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THE Philippine Stock Exchange, Inc. (PSE) expects increased investor activity this year following a surge in stock market accounts last year.

“We are optimistic that the upcoming reduction in stock transaction tax to 0.1% from 0.6%, along with the various investor education programs and the exchange’s upcoming pipeline of products, will encourage greater investor activity for the remainder of 2025,” PSE President and Chief Executive Officer Ramon S. Monzon said in an e-mail statement over the weekend.

“While growth in retail accounts has been remarkable, the real challenge is getting retail investors to participate more actively in our market as they only contribute 16% to total value turnover,” he added.

The lower stock transaction tax is among the provisions in the recently signed Republic Act No. 12214, or the Capital Markets Efficiency Promotion Act.

A PSE report last week showed stock market accounts rose 50.1% to 2.86 million in 2024 from 1.91 million in 2023, led by a 62% increase in online accounts to 2.47 million.

“This 50% jump in the number of accounts is the highest we have recorded since we started tracking investor count and profile in 2008,” Mr. Monzon said.

“This substantial growth was made possible by the enabling of digital platforms to connect to PSE’s trading engine, thereby facilitating trading by investors in the market. PSE is committed to being true to its advocacy of promoting financial inclusion,” he added.

Mr. Monzon said the PSE is also boosting investor education initiatives to help retail investors. The PSE report showed retail investors comprised 98.9% of total account owners, while institutional investors made up the remaining 1.1%.

“More than the numbers, what is important is that retail investors are equipped with investment know-how to avoid investing pitfalls. We address this need for investor education through our various investing literacy initiatives,” he said.

“We also actively work with trading participants and government and private entities to spread the word about personal finance and stock market investing,” he added.

Meanwhile, Mr. Monzon said the increase in stock market accounts was also spurred by the PSE’s technology platforms intended for retail investors.

“At the PSE, we have digital channels to support retail investors such as PSE EASy and PSE EQUIP. We recently launched the latest version of the PSE EASy mobile app that allows local small investors to subscribe to and pay for initial public offerings and follow-on offerings directly on the app. For PSE EQUIP, we now have a premium subscription model that provides access to real-time market data,” he said.

“We continue to see the impact of partnerships between PSE-accredited trading participants and digital platforms as we see a younger and more geographically diverse investor base,” he added.

The average value of online trades increased 7.9% to P50,746.82, while non-online trades rose 4.5% to an average of P99,823.86 per transaction.

Last month, the PSE announced it is upgrading its trading platform through a partnership with Nasdaq.

Under the partnership, the PSE is upgrading its trading infrastructure to the Nasdaq Eqlipse platform, which features pre-trade risk management, advanced options pricing, and index calculations. — Revin Mikhael D. Ochave

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