Already growing in popularity since it became available in Vietnam in January, online share trading has boomed in the last two months as punters stay away from the stock exchanges for fear of catching influenza.

Nguyen Hoang Long, acting general director of Au Viet Securities, says that online orders sometimes account for half of the daily total handled by his firm.

“For two months now we’ve been encouraging investors to place their orders online rather than on the premises. Long says.

A worried State Securities Commission followed suit on August 12 and told brokerages to encourage trading by telephone or online.

The commission warned it would shut down any securities firm or bourse where H1N1 flu was detected until it was safe to reopen the doors.

Long of Au Viet Securities says that, prior to July, remote trading accounted for 30 percent of the orders coming through his brokerage.

Kim Eng Vietnam Securities says online trading is catching on because of the speed and convenience.

A punter called Nam, who has an account with Vietcombank Securities, says he had problems with it at first.

“Sometimes I couldn’t get onto their website, at other times the orders took forever to get through. But everything’s okay now.”

Truong Duy Khiem, director of ACB Securities’ Le Ngo Cat branch, says that, with online trading on the rise, brokerages need to upgrade their networks to handle the heavier traffic.