While some securities firms plan to close their doors or
sell themselves to foreign investors as the market keeps falling, others are
opening more branches or raising chartered capital in order to improve
competitiveness.

ACB Securities Company (ACBS) has not been providing several
services for the last one month. ACBS General Director Nguyen Viet Hai said
that it is now the right time to standardise the company’s operation management
procedures. Hai acknowledged that previously, when the market was overly hot,
the company still provided services even though it did not have standardised
operation management.
Like ACBS, other securities firms are working hard to
improve their competitiveness to get prepared for the time when the market
bounces back.





As for Bao Viet Securities Company (BVSC), the service the
company is focusing on is giving consultancy on business restructuring.





Vo Huu Tuan, Deputy General Director of BVSC and Director of
BVSC HCM City branch, said that the demand for the service is increasing. Since
the ‘hot development period’, most businesses have wanted to review their
development and re-consider their development strategies for the time to come.
Therefore, BVSC needs to prepare itself well to give strategic consultancy for
5-10 more years. The company is also preparing itself for merger and
acquisition consultancy services, which are now in high demand.





Meanwhile, the Saigon Securities Incorporated (SSI) has been
focusing on investment consultancy. SSI has changed its monthly bulletin into a
weekly bulletin in order to provide more updated information for investors.





SSI’s analysis proves to be useful for domestic individual
investors, who are the majority in the market. The investors do not have
opportunities to access reports by foreign institutions due to the language
barrier, while domestic companies’ reports which use unfamiliar analysis
methods prove to be difficult for them to understand.





Securities firms of the second and third generations are
also striving to use this time to improve their competitiveness.





Phan Huy Chi, Chairman of SME Securities Company, said that
the company has put into operation $2mil South Korean software that serves
transactions. With the new software, SME’s clients can make online transactions
when the two trading floors apply the automatic transaction scheme.





A representative of Click and Call Securities Company has
revealed that the company is going to put new technology, now being used widely
in developed stock markets, into operation. The technology will allow investors
who have transaction accounts at the company to seek information on the
Internet more easily.





The State Securities Commission has wrapped up a draft on
changing some provisions of the regulation on securities firms’ operations
which sets stricter requirements on the establishment of securities firms. The
legal entities which make capital contributions must have the minimum legal
operation of five years, and have the chartered capital of VND300bil at least.





Securities firms which are not one-member limited companies
must have at least two founding shareholders that are legal entities, one of
which must be established and operate under the Law on Credit Institutions,
Insurance Law or Securities Law (but not securities firms). Founding
shareholders that are legal entities must hold at least 65% of the securities
firms’ chartered capital.