Total stock market accounts in Philippine Stock Exchange Inc. reached over 1.2 million in 2019, up 12.7 percent from over 1 million accounts in 2018, boosted by the growth in online accounts.
The annual Stock Market Investor Profile report of the PSE showed the number of online accounts rose 25 percent to 782,118 in 2019 from 625,763 accounts in 2018. Online accounts made up for 63.7 percent of the total, while 36.3 percent were investor accounts with traditional stockbrokerage firms.
“Online accounts have been the reason for the steady rise in total stock market accounts in the last 10 years. The shift in trading format preference of investors have encouraged stockbrokerage companies that cater to retail investors to start offering online trading services to their clients,” said PSE president and chief executive officer Ramon Monzon.