PSE stock market accounts boosted by e-wallets

The number of stock market accounts at the Philippine Stock Exchange has grown by 11.3 percent to 1.91 million as of the end of 2023 from 1.71 million accounts in 2022.

The PSE’S annual Stock Market Investor Profile report showed that the growth was mainly due to new accounts opened through the Gstocksph platform, which also pushed the share of online accounts to 80.0 percent of total stock market accounts.

Online accounts stood at 1,525,768 as of end-2023, up by 21.2 percent or 266,861 accounts.

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

He added that, “PSE’S partnership with the Department of Migrant Workers to conduct learning sessions on financial literacy and stock investing for Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWS) and their families is another initiative that can potentially boost the number of retail investors in the stock market once this program is fully implemented.”

However, the number of accounts was muted by the cleanup of dormant accounts done by trading participants (TP) in accordance with Republic Act No. 9160 or the Anti-money Laundering Act.

In terms of classification, retail investors made up 98.5 percent of total accounts while the remaining 1.5 percent belonged to institutional investors.

Similarly, local investors made up 98.5 percent of total accounts while the remaining 1.5 percent were foreign investors. In the online space, retail accounts comprised 99.9 percent of total online accounts.

Local investors owned 98.8 percent of the online accounts while foreign online accounts took up the remaining 1.2 percent.

The average value per online trade inched up by 1.8 percent to ₱47,050.48 from the 2022 average of ₱46,236.40. Meanwhile, the 2023 average value per trade in terms of total market transactions was at ₱85,385.54, an increase of 9.6 percent from ₱77,926.41.