PSE Shifts To Floorless Trading

The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE), with approval from its Board of Directors, has announced a permanent shift to a floorless trading system.

Photo Insert: Online investors accounted for 74.7 percent of total trades in 2021, accounting for 21.45 million transactions, a 21% increase over the 17.78 million transactions in 2020.

According to its official statement, recent technological advancements have made a floorless trading set-up efficient and responsive to the needs of the investing public.

The statement added, “The shift to digitalization and automation-driven partly by the pandemic, have resulted in trading participants (“TPs”) now conducting their trading activities off-site. Under the circumstances and the continuous evolution of trading operations in global markets, the Exchange has decided to permanently close the trading floor and migrate to floorless trading.”

According to Bloomberg, PSE’s online stock market accounts increased by 23.8 percent in 2021 to 1.16 million, accounting for 71.5 percent of total accounts, up from 4.3 percent in 2008.

Online investors accounted for 74.7 percent of total trades in 2021, accounting for 21.45 million transactions, a 21% increase over the 17.78 million transactions in 2020. The value of online transactions increased 44 percent to 744.49 billion pesos ($14.1 billion) from 518.27 billion pesos the previous year. Non-online accounts, on the other hand, increased 11 percent from 2020 to 2.92 trillion pesos.

It is expected that the trading floor will be permanently closed upon completion of the pull-out of TPs that currently maintain trading booths.

The Philippine Stock Exchange was established in 1992, but its history dates back much further. The exchange was formed by the merger of the Manila Stock Exchange (1927) and the Makati Stock Exchange (1963), resulting in the creation of a single exchange in the Philippines.

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