Moscow Exchange welcomes its 3 millionth retail investor

In September 2019, the number of retail investors on Moscow Exchange reached three million. 

Individual Investment Accounts (IIA) constitute a substantial portion of retail accounts registered with Moscow Exchange, now reaching 1.17 million. IIAs were introduced to stimulate investments in Russian securities by offering tax incentives to individuals.

The banks most active in opening retail investment accounts in 2019 year-to-date are Tinkoff Bank (392,000 accounts), Sberbank (341,000), VTB (182,000), BCS (54,000), Otkritie Broker (45,000), Alfa bank (29,000) and Finam (19,000).

Retail investors are active traders on the markets operated by the Exchange. Individuals have accounted for 33.5% of total turnover in equities, 8.7% in bonds and 31.4% in foreign- and Russian-law ETFs.  

Retail investors have also been active participants of bond offerings, buying RUB 360 billion of new corporate bond offerings (more than 20% of the total volume placed) and RUB 56 billion of government bonds (3.7% of the total) thus far in 2019.

The top regions by number of IIAs are Moscow and the Moscow region (589,000), St. Petersburg (151,000), Sverdlovsk region (92,000) and Bashkortostan (83,000).

Interest in investment services among Russian retail investors is being driven by tax incentives as well as increasingly sophisticated digital technologies and remote authentication services designed to allow brokerage accounts to be opened remotely. MOEX’s online client registration facility means new account holders can begin trading just a few minutes after opening an account in the Internet, via a bank or brokerage’s app or in person at their offices.

In total, more than 1 million retail investors have joined Moscow Exchange’s markets year to date. In 2018, over 700,000 new retail clients came to the Exchange, bringing the total number to 1.96 million at year-end 2018 (1.3 million at year-end 2017, 1.1 million at year-end 2016 and 1 million at year-end 2015).