The Dhaka bourse has seen a marginal rise in its mobile app users since July after it started welcoming new subscribers for a monthly fee of Tk 125 per user.
In May, the DSE saw a sharp decline in app users, as those, who had been inactive, got their registrations cancelled. The number of app users was 75,651 on April 25, which came down to 45,726 on May 31.
By September 24, the number of app users rose to 48,142, with the inclusion of new users subject to the payment of the monthly fee.
Some stock brokers, however, anticipate a reduction in the number of users from January next year when the fee will be applied to old users as well.
They say the fee seems to be high in the context of the dire strait of the capital market, and that the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) should negotiate with the vendor of the app to slash the fee.
Md. Ashequr Rahman, managing director of Midway Securities, said the sharp fall in the number of old users indicated that a majority of them were not interested in carrying out transactions through the app while the market was in the bear grip.
The number of new users [2,444] is negligible, he said, pointing out that his brokerage firm alone had the capacity to bring in 3,000 users.
The DSE has to pay $1 per month to the vendor, FlexTrade Systems, a global provider of broker-neutral trading platforms, against each registered ID.
Considering the exchange rate and 20 per cent tax, the DSE set the user fee at Tk 125 per month.
As the market has been highly illiquid for the floor price, trading stocks is often not possible. Hence, cutting the fee would be rational, said Mr. Rahman.
Transaction volumes through the app have been more than expected, given the number of users, contributing to the daily market turnover.
For example, the premier bourse on Sunday posted a turnover of Tk 5 billion, 16 per cent of which came from trading by mobile app users.
Therefore, more educated new users may boost turnover of the stock exchange if they can avail of the facility by paying less.
DSE Director Md. Shakil Rizvi said the DSE had tried to negotiate a reduced fee with the vendor but to no avail.
The Tk 125 fee is much lower compared to the fee charged by some stock brokers that introduced their own mobile apps to provide the same set of services, he added.
Some brokers, including LankaBangla Securities and City Brokerage, have introduced their own mobile apps.
Chief Executive Officer of LankaBangla Securities Khandoker Saffat Reza said the company provided clients access to its own app for free.
Mr. Rizvi said launching mobile app was a job of the brokers, and that the DSE would scrap the deal with FlexTrade Systems when a large number of stock brokers would have their own apps.
Before the imposition of the fee, the DSE kept users limited to 80,000.
In July, the DSE extended capacity for allowing users up to 300,000.
Apart from executing buy and sale orders, the app provides some featured information, including buy or sell alerts, notifications and portfolio status to the investors, which are not easily available on the website or via brokers' services.
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