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Representatives of the country's leading brokerage houses on Tuesday urged swift review of long-standing unresolved issues and the implementation of realistic, effective measures to stabilize the capital market, boost liquidity, and rebuild investor confidence.
They placed the recommendations during a consultation meeting with senior management held at the boardroom of Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) PLC, convened to ensure smooth and stable market trading. The session brought together DSE Managing Director Nuzhat Anwar, senior bourse officials, and high-level delegates from top brokerage firms.
Addressing the gathering, DSE Managing Director Nuzhat Anwar stated that the primary objective of the consultation was to incorporate the expertise and ground-level insights of market stakeholders for short-, medium-, and long-term capital market development. She assured that logical and constructive recommendations would be evaluated with seriousness and placed before the DSE Board of Directors alongside the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) to initiate policy actions.
She revealed that technical preparations to launch a derivatives market are advancing swiftly, with plans to initiate operations on schedule once prerequisite software and system architecture are fully installed. In addition, she noted that the bourse is actively working to safeguard the financial interests of investors impacted by recent irregularities at five brokerage firms.
DSE Brokers Association of Bangladesh (DBA) President Saiful Islam remarked that the capital market is currently undergoing a demanding and frustrating phase. He emphasized the urgent need to diagnose the fundamental causes of the present downturn, formulate viable remedies, and reach permanent resolutions for legacy regulatory bottlenecks.
During the discussion, representatives proposed introducing advanced trading mechanisms and new financial instruments, reviewing the potential restoration of the suspended pre-opening session, easing liquidity shortages across brokerage houses, rationalizing operational costs, and granting members margin net-off facilities.
Speakers also highlighted the need to modernize DSE's market surveillance and inspection mechanisms, urging that they become more continuous, data-driven, risk-weighted, and transparent. To move beyond an equity-centric model, they called for expanding fixed-income debt products such as bonds and dismantling regulatory and administrative impediments to attract foreign institutional portfolio investments.
Elaborating on institutional improvements, Anwar stated that market oversight is being reinforced through data-centric surveillance software and comprehensive staff training. Coordinated efforts across regulatory bodies are also progressing to streamline digital account openings, simplify retail investor services, and execute T+1 settlement cycles.
She further announced that development of the modernized DSE official web portal is nearly complete, with a formal public launch scheduled through a press conference on September 22. To prevent trading disruptions and assist users through the transition, the legacy website will remain operational alongside the new portal for an additional two to three months.
