The Ha Noi Stock Exchange will launch online trading on Monday via 45 participating brokerage houses.
Nguyen Thu Huong, an official from the exchange's market information department, said that online trading would allow brokerages to send investor orders directly to the exchange.
Ha Noi sees more new listings
The Ha Noi Stock Exchange saw eight new listings in January, raising the total number of listed firms on the bourse to 265, capitalised at a total of VND37.2 trillion (US$2 billion).
Trading volume on the northern market rose 11.61 percent month-on-month to 510.13 million shares, worth a combined VND17.64 trillion ($953.5 million).
Kim Long Securities (KLS) was the most active share during the month, with 66.45 million traded, followed by PetroVietnam Construction (PVX) and Vinaconex (VCG), both with volumes of nearly 50 million shares each.
Foreign investor activity, meanwhile, dropped 33.28 per cent from December, to just over 13 million shares, with a value of VND470.23 billion ($25.4 million). They remained net buyers for the month by a net of 3.5 million shares.
Currently, investors place buy or sell orders with their brokers. The orders are then transferred to the exchange via representatives at the bourse. The process can take several minutes to complete, which can result in losses or lost opportunities to investors.
The new system would minimise costs, time and risk, Huong said.
The bourse originally planned to introduce the system at just ten or 15 securities firms which met technical requirements. But, pleased by the new system's test run, the exchange early this week announced that 45 of the 93 securities companies with seat on the exchange would participate.
In the initial run, representatives of selected firms would continue to be physically present at the exchange, to provide service in case of problems with the new system.
"Online trading will run paralel to the current system," Huong said.
HCM City Stock Exchange spokesman Le Hai Tra said that online trading had been a success since it was launched on the southern bourse last January.
The HCM City exchange last year received 59,200 orders per day, equivalent to eight orders per second, Tra said. During a busy session, the system handled up up to 145,000 orders.
The online system there also seems to have lowered the number of violations of trading regulations, which last year fell to about half of their 2008 total.