HK-linked app big hit with 300,000 users in Mideast
A Hong Kong-based financial services provider is looking to attract Saudi Arabia’s retail investors to its recently launched online trading app in the Middle East’s largest capital market with innovative offerings, as financial ties continue to deepen between the two sides.
Valuable Capital Group officially launched Sahm Capital in December. The platform allows users to trade in both Saudi and US markets and provides a list of sharia-compliant stocks in the US, as well as US stock exchangetraded funds with Middle East themes.
The app had seen “massive success”, driven by innovative design and some promotional initiatives, said Steven Chou, chairman of Sahm Capital.
“We’re bringing new technology, new initiatives, new mindsets to the market,” Chou told the Post at the Saudi Tadawul Group’s flagship Capital Markets Forum in Hong Kong on Thursday.
Sahm Capital is a joint venture between Valuable Capital Group and eWTP Arabia Capital, a private equity firm focusing on Chinese business expansion in the Middle East backed by the Public Investment Fund, a Saudi sovereign wealth fund.
Valuable Capital, the second-largest online broker in Hong Kong by trading volume, is backed by Chinese technology company Sina Corporation.
Saudi Arabia is seeking to open up its stock market to more foreign investors as part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s plan to diversify the economy away from oil under the Vision 2030 strategy.
Sahm Capital had developed its trading platform and management system in-house instead of relying on vendors, the first in the kingdom, Chou said.
To attract new users, it has employed promotional tactics, such as offering free US stocks on signing up and waiving fees for market data through in-app vouchers.
“It [the tactics] could be quite common for us in Asia, but it is new in Saudi Arabia,” Chou said. “These are the very factors that [set us apart] from the other players.”
Sahm Capital had signed up some 300,000 users and opened more than 100,000 new trading accounts this year, a third of which were funded, Chou said.
“It’s a massive success for us. We’re opening over 2,000 accounts per day.”
Sahm’s initial success comes as Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia forge closer ties and explore ways to allow investors to invest money into each other’s capital markets.