ASL Securities has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Bank of China (Thai) Plc (BOCT) to collaborate on the local distribution of Chinese investment products, including global debt instruments, stocks and IT development.
ASL has also launched a new wealth management and investment advisory service with a focus on high-net-worth and institutional investors. The company aims to undergo a full digital transformation this year and transition all its services to an online platform.
ASL and BOCT signed the MoU on Jan 28, with the aim of expanding their businesses and providing Thai investors with more channels to invest in foreign stocks and investment products, while also giving foreign investors more exposure to the Thai stock market.
Chanchai Kultavarakorn, executive chairman of ASL, said ASL's cooperation with BOCT is a major milestone in its business expansion plans as Bank of China is one of the largest and oldest banks in China with branches in many countries around the world.
He said that through this cooperation, Thai investors will gain greater access to investment products from the fast-growing Chinese market.
The products available include stocks, foreign investment grade bonds with credit ratings of A+ or higher, and short-term financial instruments such as commercial paper.
In preparation for the new wealth management service, Mr Chanchai said ASL has worked to upgrade the quality of its research, recruited more personnel to support services in English, Chinese and Thai, and set up an institutional sales team to specifically service institutional investors.
ASL currently serves as a selling agent of mutual funds for nine asset management companies. Mr Chanchai said ASL will sign a contract with 16 more companies in the first quarter of this year and connect the fund trading system with Settrade Streaming Fund Plus, which is an application for trading mutual funds and tracking investment portfolios.
As for the brokerage business, ASL currently operates around 90% of its brokerage services online and has a daily average trading volume of 1.2-1.5 billion baht per day.
Looking towards investment strategy and direction in the first half of this year, Warut Siwasariyanon, ASL's assistant managing director for the institutional research department, said electric vehicles, food and commerce are the sectors with high growth prospects.
Hotels and airline businesses are also interesting because their stock prices should rebound when the pandemic situation begins to improve.
At present, ASL's shareholder structure consists of Government Savings Bank (25%), the Venture Cap Co (46%), Mr Chanchai (5%) and Sethiwan group (20%).