JAKARTA: The Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) said the country welcomed more than one million new equity investors in the first eight months of the year, as shown by the number of new single investor identities (SIDs) in the stock market.

       That is almost twice the 590,658 stock market entrants registered over the whole of last year. The additional investors brought the total number of Indonesian retail equity investors to 2.69 million as of August.

       IDX president director Inarno Djajadi (pic below) said the number of one million new investors was record-breaking in the 44 years the IDX has been operating since its revival in 1977.

       Indonesia Inarno DjaDjadi

       “Digital optimisation that started in 2019 as well as collaboration with many stakeholders are the main reasons for the rapid increase in new investors this year,” he said.

       He went on to say that another record-breaking achievement was the addition of 2.2 million new SIDs in the capital market overall, which lifted the total number of capital market SIDs to 6.1 million as of Aug 31.

       IDX development director Hasan Fawzi said the new retail investors also translated to a 2.2-fold increase in the number of monthly active investors to 641,442 over the same period.

       According to the Indonesian Central Securities Depository (KSEI), local investors now accounted for 55% of stock ownership and conducted 13 trillion rupiah (US$914mil or RM4bil) worth of average daily transactions in July.

       The rise of retail investors provided a buffer for the local bourse as foreign investors dumped emerging market assets.

       Hasan went on to explain that, with digital technology allowing more people in remote areas to connect to the capital market, investors were gradually becoming more equally distributed throughout Indonesia, as opposed to being concentrated on the most populous island of Java. — The Jakarta Post/ANN

       As of July, investors in Java made up 69% of all retail investors, down from 74% in 2018.

       He attributed this achievement to education programmes for investors conducted throughout the year.

       He said that the IDX, the Financial Services Authority and self-regulatory organisations conducted 3,991 training programmes to increase investors’ literacy and inclusion.

       “We realise that the challenge going forward is to accompany new investors by educating them on the stock market and protecting them,” Hasan said, adding that he was confident that the number of new investors would continue growing. – The Jakarta Post/ANN