Thousands of stock investors fail to renew BO accounts

FE Team | Published: October 01, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

FE Report
Thousands of stock market investors remain in the dark on the renewal of their Beneficiary Owner (BO) accounts, the deadline of which expired Friday last.
If not extended, the investors who have failed to renew their BO accounts by the deadline set by the Central Depository Bangladesh Ltd (CDBL) will not be able to take part in the stock trading.
According to sources, currently there are around 1.6 million BO account-holders. But the SEC officials could not say about how many BO accounts were renewed by the deadline.
"We are in the trouble as the CDBL is yet to respond to our demand for extension of the deadline," said Md Shariful Hasan, an investor.
Talking to the FE, a senior official of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said the capital market watchdog did not take any fresh decision about the extension of the deadline for the renewal of the BO accounts on payment of fee.
A source of a DSE brokerage house told the FE that many BO account holders were not aware of the deadline due to CDBL's poor publicity on the issue.
"There were weaknesses in the dissemination of such a vital information. So, the decision of the SEC should be reviewed in the interest of the bourses and investors," he said.
Earlier, the SEC through a gazette notification fixed September 30 as the deadline for the renewal of the investors' BO accounts with payment of Tk 300 for each account.
Although September 30 was the deadline for payment of the annual maintenance fee, the CDBL informed the BO account holders of its inability to continue transactions on the last day (September 30) and instead remained open on Friday to complete the job.
Meanwhile, DSE Depository Participants (DPs) alleged that they did not log into the CDBL server Sunday due to its 'low capacity'.
According to market sources, the maintenance fee was imposed to bring a 'qualitative change' in the operation of BO accounts in the stock market.
According to the new rules, out of Tk 300 deposited against each of the BO accounts, the CDBL will get Tk 150, DP Tk 100 and the SEC Tk 50.