Brokerages fail to introduce back office software
Saturday, 14 May 2011
Asaduzzaman Pallab
Brokerage firms affiliated with two bourses have failed to introduce common 'Back Office Software', despite repeated directive from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). People familiar with the situation said the capital market regulator asked brokerage houses to use this software early last year to facilitate information about clients and the stock markets. The SEC uses various data from brokerage houses mainly for investigation and other compliance purposes. A 16-member committee comprising officials of Dhaka Stock Exchange and Chittagong Stock Exchange were charged with implementing the project. DSE officials said they have already asked 221 brokerage houses to introduce the uniform software. The Dhaka bourse prepared a module of the back office software, which included reporting on 120 items and other advance application. The advance options include exchange of information through email service, mobile service, short sell data and audit trial. The DSE authority gave its member a two-month time till May for introducing such software. But a few brokerage houses followed the instruction to fulfill the obligation of SEC, an official of DSE said. The DSE decided to issue another letter to know the update of the brokerage house over installing common BOS. "After knowing the latest update we will set a final timeline for brokerage houses to install common BOS", the official told the FE. The SEC has recently put restrictions on further opening of brokerage house branches for their failure to introduce common BOS. At present, software like Blue chip, ADDA soft, trade plus and X brokers are used as the BOS software. Brokerage houses were told to update the software according to the SEC requirement DSE members are using common trading software 'MSA' provided by Cambridge Solution of India. It also plans to upgrade the trading software introducing MSA+ that could stop the short sell of shares.
Brokerage firms affiliated with two bourses have failed to introduce common 'Back Office Software', despite repeated directive from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). People familiar with the situation said the capital market regulator asked brokerage houses to use this software early last year to facilitate information about clients and the stock markets. The SEC uses various data from brokerage houses mainly for investigation and other compliance purposes. A 16-member committee comprising officials of Dhaka Stock Exchange and Chittagong Stock Exchange were charged with implementing the project. DSE officials said they have already asked 221 brokerage houses to introduce the uniform software. The Dhaka bourse prepared a module of the back office software, which included reporting on 120 items and other advance application. The advance options include exchange of information through email service, mobile service, short sell data and audit trial. The DSE authority gave its member a two-month time till May for introducing such software. But a few brokerage houses followed the instruction to fulfill the obligation of SEC, an official of DSE said. The DSE decided to issue another letter to know the update of the brokerage house over installing common BOS. "After knowing the latest update we will set a final timeline for brokerage houses to install common BOS", the official told the FE. The SEC has recently put restrictions on further opening of brokerage house branches for their failure to introduce common BOS. At present, software like Blue chip, ADDA soft, trade plus and X brokers are used as the BOS software. Brokerage houses were told to update the software according to the SEC requirement DSE members are using common trading software 'MSA' provided by Cambridge Solution of India. It also plans to upgrade the trading software introducing MSA+ that could stop the short sell of shares.