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By Likha Cuevas-Miel Reporter
The Philippine Stock Exchange is
lobbying for changes in the antimoney laundering law that would
allow overseas Filipino workers to invest in the stock market.
The lobbying is part of a
campaign to develop the capital market here, PSE President and Chief
Executive Officer Francis Ed. Lim said in an exclusive roundtable
interview with The Manila Times recently.
What’s keeping the PSE from the
tapping into the remittances—about $12.7 billion last year
alone—is the AMLA, Lim said.
Under that law, OFWs cannot open
brokerage accounts without personal appearance, Lim explained. The
“know your client” provision of the law, which is part of the
global drive against money that fund terrorism activities, also
prohibits OFWs from opening an account with online brokerage firms.
“It’s silly,” he said,
adding that it was simply “red tape.”
Referring to Vicente Aquino of
the Antimoney Laundering Council, Lim said, “I’ve been telling
the AMLC executive director for as long as these Filipinos are
already clients of the bank, why can’t they get a certification
from the bank that they are already clients [of the bank] so they
can be automatically be a client of the broker so they don’t have
to come over and open an account here in the Philippines.”
To support this, the PSE has been
encouraging banks and brokerage firms to forge partnerships or banks
to open online brokerage firms so that OFWs abroad can trade online.
“What we did was we got the SEC
[Securities and Exchange Commission] into the picture to discuss the
regulatory constraints with the AMLC,” Lim said. “I think
we’re already about to convince them because we already got the
SEC to advocate [our cause] because the SEC is also a member of the
[Capital Market Development] Council,” he said.
However, Lim said the PSE
understands the need for this requirement and it is exploring
alternatives like conducting pre-departure seminars on investing in
the stock market for OFWs.
Besides educating the OFWs about
investing and keep them from being preyed upon by Ponzi scams, the
seminars would also encourage them to open an account with the
brokerage firms who would participate in the lecture.
“We’ve already asked the
Market Education Department that before the OFW leaves, they could
give a talk or a seminar so that when the time comes when they have
disposable income, they will have the stock market in mind,” Lim
said.
The PSE president said he already
commissioned a study how the PSE can “segmentize” OFWs to
determine who are may be tapped to invest in the stock market since
not all of them have disposable income for investments.
It only takes P5,000 to open a
brokerage account, he said.
Channeling remittances to the
stock market would bolster the PSE.
Lim said the PSE is the
second-oldest stock market in the region, having been established in
1927. But he said not even 1 percent of the 80 million Filipinos are
into stocks trading.
He told The Times that his
mission is to make the stock market popular among the masses,
including OFWs.
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