GStocks propels gains in stock market accounts

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Stock Exchange Inc. (PSE) said stock market accounts expanded by double digits last year, driven primarily by new accounts opened through the GStocksPH platform.

Based on the  PSE’s annual stock market investor profile,  stock market accounts reached 1.91 million   as of end-2023, 11.3 percent higher than the 1.71 million accounts a year ago.

According to the PSE, new accounts opened through the GStocksPH platform pushed the share of online accounts to 80 percent of the total stock market accounts.

Online accounts grew by 21.2 percent year-on-year to 1.53 million last year.

E-wallet giant GCash tapped AB Capital Securities last year to introduce GStocksPH to its users, allowing them to diversify their portfolios and choose companies listed on the PSE.

Its user base   reached nearly half a million as of  April.

“Giving e-wallet holders direct access to the stock market is instrumental in our drive to increase retail investor participation in the market,” PSE president and CEO Ramon Monzon said.

The PSE reported that retail investors made up a majority or 98.5 percent of total accounts in 2023, while the remaining 1.5 percent belonged to institutional investors.

Local investors likewise made up 98.5 percent of total accounts, with the other 1.5 percent composed of foreign investors.

In the online space, the PSE said retail accounts comprised 99.9 percent of total online accounts.

It said local investors owned 98.8 percent of the online accounts while foreign online accounts took up the remaining 1.2 percent.

The share of Metro Manila-based investors in 2023 dropped significantly to 68 percent from 84.6 percent in 2022 for online accounts and to 68.2 percent from 81.5 percent for total accounts.

Monzon said programs that democratize access to the stock market played a role in the investor location data in 2023.

“Aside from e-wallets serving as access point to stock investing, the exchange’s programs such as PSE EASy paved the way for investors based outside Metro Manila to invest in the stock market. I hope this growth in non-Metro Manila investors will be sustained over the years so that the geographical aspect of financial inclusion is addressed,” he said.

PSE EASy or the PSE Electronic Allocation System is a platform that enables local small investors to participate in initial public offerings and follow-on offerings.

It has already registered investors in 80 provinces so far.

Monzon said the PSE’s partnership with the Department of Migrant Workers to conduct learning sessions on financial literacy and stock investing for overseas Filipino workers and their families is another initiative that can potentially boost the number of retail investors in the stock market once the program is fully implemented.

“Alongside encouraging retail investors to invest in the stock market, PSE pursues initiatives beneficial to them. For instance, we submitted to our regulator amendments to the board lot to lower the minimum investment requirement,” Monzon said.

“We are also fine tuning the PSE EQUIP platform to provide more comprehensive data access to retail investors. Investor education also remains to be a priority advocacy of the Exchange with the revamped PSE Academy website as the main touchpoint for investment literacy activities,” he said.