Two interesting things happened to the SET this week, first they launched a new trading engine … 

SET President Charamporn Jotikasthira, said: “Today marked another key milestone in the development of the Thai capital market, as now that we began operating our new trading engine, SET CONNECT, with full efficiency.

Source: SET

…and following as a result from the succesful launch, starting in October, Thai’s (that don’t have offshore bank accounts) will be able to invest/trade in the Malaysian and Singapore and vice versa as well.

The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) is ready to be connected on the ASEAN Trading Link in October, following a recent successful launch of SET’s new trading engine, and aims at increasing investment opportunities in Thailand by actively presenting the potential of the Thai stock market and strengths of its listed companies for investors both in Malaysia and Singapore ahead of the launch of ASEAN Trading Link.

Source: SET

Would there be any significant impact for Thailand? I’m not too sure in all honesty, foreign investors already have decent access to the Thai market if they are sizeable investors thus I’m not expecting to see the market volumes double or triple overnight. Local brokers, however, would definitely be happier with the possibility of selling more products/pitching stock ideas to their clients. All in all, I’m happy to see that the Stock Exchange of Thailand is taking steps to open up potential markets to local investors here.