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boiman
12-08-2008, 11:57 AM
Holding conferences and meetings has been a growing trend for securities companies to lure new customers.
A recent rush of conferences have been organised by both existing and newly established securities firms on a variety of topics.


Viet Nam International Securities (VIS) last Monday held a conference reviewing the first seven months of the stock market.


On July 30, Vincom
Securities and Dai Viet Securities held two separate exchange meetings
with their clients to discuss how rising oil prices had impacted the
stock market, and to forecast the stock market in the remaining months
of the year.


Nguyen Van Quynh, a veteran investor in HCM City, said that the number of exchange meetings and conferences for securities investors has skyrocketed.


"It was hard to find any
conferences at this time two years ago. Instead, the securities firms
were rushing to launch new technology services. If you could find one,
it came from a giant brokerage like Bao Viet Securities or Sai Gon
Securities Inc," Quynh said.


But now, investors
receive invitations to conferences almost daily, he said, with the
invitations coming from different firms, including new firms that
investors haven’t even heard of.


Nguyen Mai Phuong, head
of the Customers Relation Department in a Ha Noi-based securities firm,
said that companies have recognised the benefits of meeting with
investors. As a result, they rushed to hold conferences.


"For brokerages,
conferences or meetings benefit us by increasing the number of
investors," Phuong said, noting that companies could advertise their
strengths in securities services to customers through these meetings.


Nguyen Ho Nam,
general director of Sacombank Securities, said that holding discussions
would also be a chance to update investors with the latest information,
instead of letting investors find their own way to sort through often
confusing news and reports.


"Investors now absorb
many kinds of information spread out on the stock market. Even overseas
financial institutions release one-sided reports on our stock market,
which sometimes confuses investors," he added.


Conferences held by
brokerages partially help calm down investors reacting to the mass of
reports, and help stabilise the market, Nam said.


With such a large number
of conferences being held, investors are saying that not every
conference is proving as useful as organisers advertise.


Veteran investor Quynh recently attended one conference she found particularly useless.


"This meeting was so boring that investors got fed up with asking questions and left half an hour early," she said.


Phuong said that similar
content was unavoidable when securities companies were using the
conferences as an instrument to attract new customers.


"Recently, securities
firms have undergone losses caused by the hard times early this year in
the market. Now that the market has warmed up again, they are trying to
lure more customers to compensate for the loss, it’s understandable,"
Phuong said.


She noted that as
investors get familiar with conferences, they’ll be able to find better
examples serve themselves. She added that brokerage success in
attracting new clients will depend on how they can follow investor
psychology.


"Vietnamese investors
now need more exchange meetings like those local securities firms are
offering their clients," said John Nolan, an analyst from a HCM City
fund management company. "The contents should be selective and
diversified to meet the demands of the market."


Nolan also said that
securities firms should put more effort in exchanges between with their
clients for maximum effectiveness, avoiding unnecessary expenses for
both the firms and investors which could lead to unexpected results.