Qatar Stock Exchange (QSE) yesterday organized a working dinner for brokerage firms'''' managers and representatives. During the dinner, the attendees exchanged views on market developments, the challenges facing the brokerage firms and the means to reduce their costs, as well as the methods to develop the market and brokerage business through expansion of investors-oriented services, such as liquidity provision, margin trading, research activities and market sponsored access.
During the meeting which was attended by several QSE directors, Mr. Rashid bin Ali Al-Mansoori, CEO of Qatar Stock Exchange, stressed the importance of having open and regular meetings with brokers and market participants to discuss important issues and proposals via round table meetings as a first step and then conduct follow up of these proposals as a second step. He ponted out that competitive in the local market in general and the financial services market in particular is a positive thing since it increases the quality of services and leads to creativity and innovation.
The brokers also discussed the issue of high costs incurred by brokerage firms and the relatively low RoI, and Mr. Al-Mansoori highlighted QSE initiative to help brokers reduce IT operational costs through hosting brokers’ network systems at QSE as a back end in order to reduce licensing and maintenance costs paid by brokerage firms.
The attendees also stressed that the listing of new companies in the stock market enahnces liquidit, trading activity and investor confidence in the market. The brokerage managers went on saying that the new listings are vital deepening the market and attracting more capital and investors, especially in view of the fact that the stock market is the mirror of all economic sectors such as hydrocarbon, industrial, financial, transportation and tourism sectors.
The brokers’ managers stressed the importance of diversification of exchange-traded products such as traded investment funds and corporate bonds in order to diversify sources of income and provide more investment solutions to suit investors needs. In this context, they stressed the need to stay away from bureaucracy with regard to regulatory and licensing matters.
Mr. Al-Mansoori highlighted the importance of creativity and innovation in the Qatari capital market as a mean to achieve economic diversification, stressing that the fear of innovation and new initiatives will not go ahead with the stock exchange, but will be a factor of rigidity that will lead to lack of competitiveness with developed markets.
Mr. Al-Mansoori thanked all those who attended the dinner and expressed his appreciation of the efforts made by all the parties, including brokers and government authorities, for their role in supporting investment in Qatar Stock Exchange so as to serve investors from one side and consolidate the national economy from the other side.
