Thai stock exchange’s platform to ease asset trading
THE Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) is keeping pace with changing times by allowing the digital asset market to be in lockstep with the traditional capital market so they can have parallel growth, making it easier for all groups of investors.
The SET plans to launch this year “Live Exchange”, a funding platform for smalland medium-sized enterprises (SME) and start-ups, as well as facilitate the expansion and easier access to both investment and utility tokens.
The Thai Digital Assets Exchange ( TDX) will offer more flexibility to all groups of investors to facilitate investing in both traditional capital and digital markets, allowing a range of options to invest and raise capital.
Speaking at the forum “The New Paradigm Shift Of The Financial World” hosted by The Nation and Asia News Network on March 30, SET president Pakorn Peetathawatchai shared the goal of evolving and connecting the capital market and digital asset market to ensure growth and sustainability for both business and society.
Offering an overview of the market, he said in 2021, the Thai capital market had continued to grow and was the 7th biggest in Asia and 18th in the world in market cap. He said the Thai capital market has been the biggest in ASEAN for almost a decade.
The SET estimates the key developments in the Thai capital market through three strategies: market growth; infrastructure expansion, environmental solution and social development.
The SET wants to make the capital market more accessible by simplifying the procedures for opening new trading accounts, encouraging retail investors to use a digital platform for trading, and attracting young investors.
He said the SET is going to offer an open platform, but he made it clear that they will not touch crypto. He made the point that most of the digital asset trading as of now revolves around cryptocurrency. The TDX platform would be launched in the third quarter this year including the investment and utility tokens, he said.
Fundraising through tokenisation is now a global trend. Also, many features for investors are available according to their needs, while upholding investor protection measures, he added.
Investors can improve token liquidity by trading in the secondary digital asset exchange. Most digital asset exchanges are open 24/7. The settlement cycle is extremely fast compared with the traditional type, Pakorn said.
So, tokenisation can solve the problem for retail investors as it involves lower cost and offers more liquidity. As a result investors have more chances to make higher profit, he said.
All investments carry risks, and there are pros and cons in both the traditional and digital markets. The SET has an important role of setting strict criteria for investors. All protocols are only part of measures to protect the sector against scammers and confusing information. Hence, the Thai SET plans all strategies to generate the most benefit to investors, he said.