The Thai SEC looks to push forward with its plans to liberalise the brokerage industry within Thailand. I found two comments made interesting:

“It’s time to move forward … We will not limit the number of brokerage licences and we will scrap the minimum commission fees,” Dr Vorapol said.

Consequence of this? Any brokerage with less than 2% market share will 1.) shut down; 2.) merge with other local brokers a la Finansa/Syrus/ACL Securities, 3.) sell to international brokerages a la Kimeng & Maybank

Under the SEC proposal, brokers will be required to maintain coverage for at least 30 listed securities.

If a broker’s market share is less than 0.5% of total market trade, its coverage requirement will fall to just 15 companies, of which at least one-quarter must be large-cap companies in the SET100 index.

On the other hand, brokers with a market share of 3% to 5% of trade will be required to maintain coverage of at least 50 companies, a requirement that rises to 75 for firms with a market share of 5.01% to 10% and 100 for firms with a market share above 10%.

Now this is interesting…this will force Asia Plus Securities and Kim Eng Securities to increase their coverage wider than what it currently is today, which would help some companies finally have coverage.

Source: Bangkok Post