JSX to start scripless trading next month

JAKARTA (JP): Ahead of the commencement of scripless trading scheduled for July 11, the Jakarta Stock Exchange (JSX) will hold a few rounds of mock trading to test the computer system starting on Saturday.

"Everything else is on schedule. We'll start scripless trading in early July," JSX Head of Communications Division Intan Abdams told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

She said there would be four companies whose shares would be traded on the scripless format on JSX's first day of scripless trading, adding that the other shares would gradually follow suit in a series of batches.

The four companies are PT Suparma, PT Multipolar Corporation, PT Dankos Laboratories and PT Sari Husada, Intan said.

The companies in the next batch include PT Astra International, PT Indosat, PT Matahari Putra Prima, PT Kalbe Farma, PT Bakrie Brothers, PT Adindo Foresta Indonesia, PT Smart Corporation and PT Panin Bank.

She said some investors had begun registering the title of ownership over the shares they possess to accommodate the process of converting the shares from the physical form into scripless form.

In scripless trading, the certificates of ownership of the shares -- instead of being located in the traditional custodian bank -- will be kept in an electronic share account under a specified investor at the exchange's central custodian office (KSEI).

She said the fee for registering the shares, which is charged to the investors, was Rp 2,500 per lot of shares. And the fee for converting the shares into scripless format, which is charged to the corresponding listed company, stood at between Rp 300 and Rp 1500.

She said investors holding the shares of the four companies in the first batch would not be able to trade their shares starting July 11 unless they had registered their share ownership and had the respective listed company convert the shares into scripless form.

And investors of companies in the next batch would be faced with the same condition starting in mid-August, she said. This would be extended to other company shares included in the next batches, said Intan.

Lin Che Wei, head of Research at PT SG Securities Indonesia, said scripless trading would make JSX trading more efficient.

"Those rather less liquid stocks will become more liquid with the improved efficiency provided by scripless trading," Che Wei said.

He said scripless trading would also help prevent market manipulation as the nature of the system allowed itself to immediately identify who the seller and the buyer was in each transaction. (udi)