The key to entice greater youth participation is to provide necessary knowledge, skills and accessibility to invest

By SULHI KHALID / Pic By TMR File

THE millennial generation are not investing in the local bourse as they lack financial knowledge, according to Bursa Malaysia Bhd’s CEO Datuk Muhammad Umar Swift.

Muhammad Umar said the key to entice greater youth participation is to ensure the convenience of accessibility to invest in the local equity market.

“If we are looking into our investor base, majority of them are the baby boomers generation. The youth have to be involved in the market, we need to reach out to them as they’re not investing. We want them to invest for the future,” he told reporters yesterday during the Inter-Varsity Stock Challenge (IVSC) event in Kuala Lumpur.

Last year, the retail investors’ participation accounted for 22% of Bursa Malaysia’s market share with a total of 146,590 central depository system (CDS) accounts opened throughout the period.

To date, there are about 1.4 million active retail investor accounts in the local stock market.

“Millennials are the fastest growing account for us. We notice most of the CDS newly-open accounts are from this group,” said Bursa Malaysia chief commercial officer Selvarany Rasiah (picture).

Muhammad Umar’s comment suggests not all new CDS holders are engaging in trading. Selvarany said Bursa Malaysia will continue to reach out and engage with schools and universities as part of its effort to educate the youth about basic investing.

“We have a very strong focus in growing millennial participation in our market.

“The approach to reach the millennial generation is providing them with the necessary knowledge and skills, so that when they come into the market they will do it in an informed manner,” she said.

On a separate note, N2N Connect Bhd MD Andrew Tiang Boon Hua said the IVSC is an effective and rewarding way to enlarge the pool of investing community in the nation.

“With the rising cost of living, people should be equipped with the knowledge and ability to invest and trade, so that they can access a diverse range of investment opportunities to increase their wealth and improve their quality of life,” he said.

The IVSC, a three-month interactive stock trading competition, held this year from May-July, had attracted 3,000 students from Tunku Abdul Rahman University College, Multimedia University and Taylor’s University.

About 787 teams from these three universities participated in the event with each group required to maximise their return from a virtual start-up capital of RM100,000.

A total of RM81,000 worth of prizes were offered to participants of the IVSC and the grand prize winner walked away with RM30,000.

N2N Connect, the integrated trading and settlement platform for the stockbroking industry, jointly organised the competition with four investment banks namely — Affin Hwang Capital, Macquarie Capital Securities (M) Sdn Bhd, Public Investment Bank Bhd and AmInvestment Bank Bhd.