CSE to open branch office in Negombo

The Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) will open a regional branch office in Negombo on Wednesday as part of a strategy to broadbase the stock market and to expand the services throughout the country to service domestic individual investors.

The Negombo Branch office will provide investors in Negombo and its neighbouring areas the same access to the market as available in Colombo.

The branch will house 10 stockbroker firms, offering both equity and debt trading facilities, online access to the stockmarket and a range of other services such as order acceptance, online trade execution, investment advice, pre-trade and post-trade documentation services such as account opening, deposits, withdrawals, etc.

The stockbrokers operating at the Negombo branch would be Asha Phillip Securities, Asia Securities, Bartleet Mallory Stockbrokers, Capital Alliance Securities, Ceylinco Stockbrokers, D. P. Global Securities, First Capital Equities, Lanka Orix Securities, Lanka Securities and SMB Securities.

The branch network of the CSE accounts for approximately 15% of the local individuals' turnover of the stock market. Over 23,000 individual investors have opened accounts and traded through the CSE Branch network since 1999.

The branch network of the CSE generated a trading turnover of Rs. 5.2 billion in 2006 and Rs. 2.1 billion within the first half of 2007.