Philippine bourse seeks to boost retail trading with new reforms

[MANILA] The sole stock exchange in the Philippines is preparing a slew of measures including new exchange-traded funds to attract retail investors away from online gambling and cryptocurrency trading.

The Philippine Stock Exchange will start using a new trading engine later this year that lowers the minimum number of shares that can be traded in a single transaction and introduce new types of exchange-traded funds, President and CEO Ramon Monzon said in an interview at his office in the Taguig City business district.

The bourse seeks to fast track the accreditation of stockbrokers, allow margin trading and offer derivatives catering to big investors, he said.

The measures come at a time when participation of small investors in equity trading is lagging behind peers like Vietnam and India. It also comes as Philippine equities enjoy a nascent resurgence, with the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) Index rising 11 per cent from a low in May. 

The stock market, which at one point was the world’s worst performing last year, has seen retail participation limited at 20 per cent of overall trading versus 80 per cent in Vietnam, according to PSE data. While most of the 3.64 million stock market accounts in 2025 belonged to individuals, it pales in comparison to 10 million online gambling accounts, PSE data showed.

In the Philippines, “there is no retail play, period,” Monzon said. The exchange is encouraging broadly known companies to list in an effort to attract their customers to become stockholders, he said. “We need new companies, new listings.”

For instance, the planned fourth-quarter initial public offering of the owner of GCash, the Philippines’ biggest mobile wallet, is expected to draw new retail investors, Monzon said. The share sale of Mynt, whose key shareholders include Globe Telecom, Ant International and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, could raise a record 92.3 billion pesos (US$1.5 billion).

Angkas, a motorcycle-taxi ride hailing firm backed by Malaysian private equity firm Creador, plans to list as early as this year, which could entice retail investors such as passengers and its partner drivers to buy its shares, Monzon said.

The bourse is inviting Global Electric Transport, whose electric minibuses ply Manila’s roads, to conduct an IPO, he said.

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“The ingredients for the turnaround are there,” Monzon said, pointing to attractive valuations and competitive profit margins of listed firms versus regional peers. “The PSE is cautiously optimistic that investor confidence will gain further traction in the months ahead.” BLOOMBERG