In order to enhance investor benefits and long-term growth of the business, SET will emphasize on good corporate governance for listed companies. Under the new SET organization structure, its new role is to decrease a supervisory role while increasing customer servicing roles in support of the development of the Thai capital market. With the pro-active business plan, SET expects to raise the paid-up capital of SET listed companies by 48,000 million Baht.
Mr Vicharat Vichit-Vadakan, President of the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) revealed during SET’s media annual seminar, Hua Hin, that this year SET would use a pro-active strategies targeted at increasing the number of listed companies and thus expanding investor base.
“According to our plan, directly educating entrepreneurs from various businesses about the benefits of listing on the SET is the priority”, said Khun Vicharat, “In order to increase the products in the stock exchange, we’ve planned for various activities such as organize pre-listing and post-listing services, focusing on customer satisfaction which we call “Happy Plus Service” he added. In addition, SET also plans to offer consultancy services, arrange for road shows, seminars, promoting new instruments such as non-voting depository receipts (NVDRs), Index options, and various funds are underway. Including in its plan, SET will also build confidence in its products by emphasize and promote on good monitoring systems among listed companies”. said Mr Vicharat.
“The Market for Alternative Investment (MAI) has set its target for registered capital belonging to companies trading on the SET at 2,000 million baht”, said Mr Yuth Vorachattarn, Executive Vice President and Managing Director of the MAI. “We will encourage companies to list quickly. In a short term plan we will focus on establish our customer base and expand it in a long term. Integrated marketing communications will be our tools to achieve those objectives.
“The Stock Exchange of Thailand will also work closely with the government and other relevant organizations in order to join hands in inducing a greater number of high quality companies to list on the Exchange. On March 31, the Stock Exchange of Thailand, together with government agencies and parties concerned in the capital market, will organize a seminar to marshal ideas relating to the development of the capital market, an activity we are confident will contribute to the revival of the Thai capital market. In April, another seminar will be conducted on ‘Overseeing Activities: The Base for Sustainable Success’ to which Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra will preside over.
“By using these strategies to increase the range of products on offer, we expect that The SET will be able to raise total paid-up capital in the market up by 48,000 million baht as planned”, Mr Vicharat said.
“As regards expanding our investor base, this year we will also implement several activities to meet the needs of both retail and institutional investors”, said Mr.Vicharat. “For instance, SET will first time organize the “Investor Fair”, an activity to promote investment in stocks, scheduled for June 8-12, at BITEC. The fair is aimed to enhance understanding among Thais about investment in the stock market in a manner that can be easily understood. In addition, SET will offer an information service relating to investment (Call Center), revamp our website in order to meet the needs of new investors, arrange continuous training concerning investment, organize training courses for Thai youths in the SET-JAT (SET Junior Achievement Thailand) program, and arrange for listed companies to provide more information directly to institutional investors. New instruments that we expect to be able to trade this year, such as NVDR, index options and various forms of funds will also help stimulate interest among investors”.
In addition, SETTRADE.COM Co. Ltd, a subsidiary of the SET, has laid out plans for increasing methods of trading shares via the Internet, increasing facilities for investors, and providing information in several forms to securities companies. According to Mr. Somkid Jiranuntarat, Chief Executive Officer of SETTRADE.COM Ltd, “This year, our plan is to establish long-term Internet trading infrastructure, in order to reduce the operational costs for stock companies. In addition, we will arrange for online monetary transfers in order to enable investors to immediately increase the amount of money traded in shares. We will also have a cellular phone-based warning system, telling investors when the price has reached the level they want, and build an all-in-one trade order system. At the same time, we will set up SETTRADE Corners in provinces to make it more convenient for investors to trade in shares via the Internet quick and securely. We will increase the information regarding share trading decisions on our website www.settrade.com and create meeting points for electronics discourse among the analysts of various companies”.
Mr. Vicharat said that in addition to the major works detailed above, The SET is also revamping its clearing and settlement system in order to increase the efficiency of operations, be able to respond to stock trading in the future, reduce the duplication of work and reduce operational costs for both investors and stock companies. Mrs. Nongram Wongwanich, Managing Director of the Thailand Securities Depository Co.Ltd.(TSD), said that “TSD will revamp and transform the stock deposit system into a ‘Real Time Depository Records’ (RTDR) system, in order to enable stockholders to look at the latest information that they need on time and help reduce the problem of giving stocks to other people when customers cannot make their appointments on time. In addition, TSD will promote the 100% scripless system, which will help protect against the disappearance of information, reduce the costs otherwise spent on issuing share certificates, and help speed up payments and the transferral of shares”, she said. “This will include developing the payment system and the transferral of derivatives in order to respond to the trading of such instruments in the future. We will also study the use of a ‘Straight Through Processing’ system (STP) to reduce the number of steps, thus increasing the stability of the system and reduce the risk of failure to meet appointments as well as reduce cost of investment of the whole industry. At the same time, we will develop the Thai stock market to an international level, so that we can respond to inter-market trading in the future”.
Mr Vicharat closed by saying that “SET strongly believes that under the new organization structure together with our pro-active strategic plan, we are quite certain about the sustainable success of the Thai capital market”.
