Bangladeshi Stock Markets and Internet

AB Bank Ltd., Lanka Bangla Finance and IDLC Securities Ltd. That is how someone I know described the best brokerage houses in Bangladesh's bourses--DSE and CSE. FYI, its worth checking out websites of Securities & Exchanges Commission, CDBL, DSE and CSE to have a general idea how internet friendly our stock trading is. You would find it interesting to check out www.bangladeshstockmarket.com too. Interestingly enough, this clumsy little website has a banner of Chittagong Stock Exchange and was developed by one company called CMC, India. This was supposed to have enabled Internet Based Trading. But for some unknown reason this was never promoted, used, implemented or even improved. Given the increased internet penetration rate in the country, 10% quota for NRBs to participate in the IPO lotteries and keeping in view the immense amount of searches generated in Google seeking information about forthcoming IPOs, lottery results, particular stocks etc., it is high time I guess that the premier bourses of the country take solid measures to implement real time internet based share trading.

Some do argue that our share markets are not transparent enough and there is yet not a strong demand so as to warrant internet-based stock trading. However I believe allowing investors to take part in the trading without having to visit broker premises would greatly increase trade volume. This was echoed by fellow blogger bdanalyst as well. NRBs would love to trade online (through their broker's website) and place orders which could be used to replace current methods of signing 'order forms' or 'Power of Attorney' to execute a trade on their behalf. IT companies, policy makers and the SEC has a bright chance ahead to catch up with the competition around. FYI, our market capitalization is only 6% of our GDP, the lowest in South Asia. So there is plenty of room for growth.

The IT department of DSE is trying to do a modest job of relaying the latest stock prices to internet with 30 minutes delay. They are also trying to come up with some sort of market research , data mining facilities etc. for internet savvy investors. But it could be argued that what they are doing could be greatly improved if they get support from IT savvy brokerage houses who would want to give their clients chance to trade through websites, along with traditional phone calls, personal visits, faxes etc. IT companies of the country could come up to bridge this important gap. BASIS and SEC, please think about it.