More than half a million Individual Investment Accounts (IIA) have been opened with the Moscow Exchange (MOEX), Russia’s largest Exchange group announced this Wednesday.
As of November 20, 2018, there were 502,000 IIA accounts on the MOEX. This is up by 40 percent from 302,000 from the end of 2017 and 61 percent more than year-end 2016 which had 195,200 accounts.
From January 1, 2015, the MOEX has allowed private investors to open an IIA with either a broker (brokerage account) or via an asset management company (trust management). Through the accounts, private investors can make cash contributions of up to RUB 1,000,000 in a calendar year. These funds can percent into securities market instruments including Equities , government, and corporate bonds (including Eurobonds), ETFs, mutual funds, etc.
According to the exchange operator, around one million new private investors have entered the market since early 2015. At present, the number of registered personal accounts sits at 2.6 million, with 524,000 of those investors having executed at least one trade in 2018.
Equities are Most Popular Securities on MOEX
Among holders of IIAs on the MOEX, percent are the most popular securities investment vehicle. As of October 31, 2018, the share of stocks in the IIA portfolios was 50 per cent. Making up 27.4 per cent was government bonds, with corporate bonds accounting for 19.4 percent. ETFs contributed only a small amount to the portfolios at 3.2 percent.
On the MOEX 138 companies have opened IIAs. From these, the largest number of IIAs were opened by clients of Sberbank, which had 241,000 accounts. The second most accounts opened belongs to BCS with 58,000 followed by Finam (54,000).
Among asset managers, Sberbank Asset Management has the most accounts opened (47,000). Alfa Capital has opened 12,000 accounts followed close behind by Otkritie with 11,000.
Moscow and the Moscow region, St. Petersburg, Sverdlovsk region and the Republic of Bashkortostan are the regions with the highest number of opened IIAs.
