Bursa Malaysia has issued a public consultation paper on new proposals for a streamlined account opening process for individual investors

Southeast Asia’s emerging market nation, Malaysia, plans to enhance its financial markets landscape for domestic investors. The country’s main bourse, Bursa Malaysia, has issued a public consultation paper which aims to set new standards for the growing stock exchange among domestic investors.

The Public Consultation Paper, issued by the bourse, is to seek public feedback on the proposal to simplify the requirements on the opening of trading and securities accounts for individual investors. The move highlights the contribution of technology to the governance of emerging market stock markets as they look to compete with developed markets.

Emerging market stock exchanges have been gradually embracing new technologies in the way they operate their trading framework, however, with policies still in their infancy many have been slow in maintaining full e-trading solutions across the board, from client onboarding to trade reporting. Malaysia’s stock exchange, Bursa Malaysia, aims to rid users of setting up accounts with extensive paperwork requirements.

Members of the exchange, Participating Organisations (POs) and authorised depository agents (ADAs) of the Exchange request new users to provide notarised documents, that are to be submitted in person.