According to the Vietnam Securities Depository (VSD), the number of domestic investor accounts increased by 113,175 accounts in February 2024, slightly lower than the previous month. This is partly due to the shortened working days in February because of the extended Lunar New Year holiday.
In terms of structure, the increase in the number of securities accounts in the first month of 2024 mainly came from individual investors with 113,097 accounts. Meanwhile, accounts of institutional investors only increased by 78 accounts.
Thus, after a period of decline due to the review and cleansing activities of the relevant agencies regarding securities market participants, the number of domestic investor securities accounts has been increasing for the past 3 months. As of the end of February 2024, Vietnam has nearly 7.5 million individual securities accounts, equivalent to about 7.5% of the population.
According to the approved Securities Market Development Strategy (SMDS) until 2030, Vietnam aims to achieve a milestone of 9 million securities trading accounts of investors on the stock market by 2025 and 11 million accounts by 2030. In which, the Government requires a focus on the development of institutional investors, professional investors, and attracting the participation of foreign investors.
The number of securities accounts has been increasing in the context of a fairly positive market performance recently. In February alone, VN-Index increased by 7.59% reaching the 17-month peak, recording the 4th consecutive month of gains. This is also the highest monthly increase this index has achieved since July 2023.
The market has been going up despite the net selling pressure from foreign investors. After taking a “break” in the first month of the year, foreign investors continued to net sell over 2,300 billion VND on HoSE in the past February.
Although foreign investors have been net sellers, the number of foreign investor accounts in Vietnam continues to increase month by month. By the end of February 2024, foreign investors had a total of 45,677 securities accounts, an increase of 106 accounts compared to the end of last year. In terms of structure, the number of individual investor accounts increased by 117 accounts, while the number of institutional accounts decreased by 11 accounts.
