Datuk Seri Tajuddin Atan
KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia Bhd’s net profit for the financial year ended Dec 31, 2018 increased slightly to RM224.04 million from RM223.04 million recorded in the same period last year.
Revenue, however, declined to RM550 million from RM556.83 million.
Chief executive officer Datuk Seri Tajuddin Atan said the higher profit was due to higher operating revenue of RM523.3 million, a 0.2 per cent increase from the previous financial year, and a year-on-year decrease of 3.6 per cent in operating expenses as a result of lower technology and staff costs.
He said cost-to-income ratio improved by one percentage point to 44 per cent, while the return on equity remained stable at 26 per cent.
“Throughout the year, to create a more facilitative environment, we continued implementing initiatives to further enhance the vibrancy and liquidity of the market,” he added.
He said this included the launch of Intraday Short Selling for all investors, liberalising margin financing rules and the six-month waiver of trading and clearing fees for new individual investors until Sept 18, 2018.
He said Bursa Malaysia also continued to improve market structure and framework, introducing new sector classification and sectorial indices during the year to further align the exchange with internationally recognised standards
“We made great strides to improve market liquidity, strengthening the eco-system and reaching out to more investors,” he said.
According to Tajuddin, the launch of the Mini FTSE Bursa Malaysia Mid 70 Index Futures Contract (FM70), provided the opportunity for a wider group of retail investors to participate in derivatives trading.
“We will continue to focus on increasing retail participation anchored in our retail investment campaign ‘Invest Bursa Invest in You’, launched in September last year,” he said.
For the year under review, he said securities market trading revenue increased by 2.4 per cent to RM265.8 million from RM259.6 million in financial year 2017, mainly due to higher average daily trading value for securities market’s on-market trades which grew by 3.4 per cent to RM2.4 billion from RM2.3 billion in the previous financial year.
He said non-trading revenue recorded a marginal decrease of 0.1 per cent to RM165.9 million from RM166.1 million a year before due to lower listing and issuer services revenue which decreased by 2.7 per cent year-on-year.
“This was partially offset by the higher market data revenue, up 4.9 per cent to RM36.2 million from RM34.5 million in financial year 2017,” he added.
On the derivatives market, Tajuddin said the average daily contracts traded last year decreased 2.1 per cent to 56,488 contracts from 57,677 contracts in the previous year, resulting in a lower trading revenue of RM76.7 million from RM80.6 million.
He said 13.7 million contracts were traded in financial year 2018 as compared to 14 million contracts in financial year 2017.
“Crude Palm Oil Futures (FCPO) contracts traded in financial year 2018 decreased by 12.1 per cent to 10.5 million contracts with hedgers not as forthcoming in using FCPO as a result of lower volatility and weakening prices,” he said.
However, he said the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI Futures saw an increase in the number of contracts traded by 22.8 per cent to 2.5 million contracts from two million contracts in the previous year.
On the Islamic Capital Market, Tajuddin said trading revenue for Bursa Suq Al-Sila’ in financial year 2018 decreased by 5.6 per cent to RM14.9 million from RM15.8 million in the previous financial year, mainly due to higher trades which were under the volume-based pricing scheme that attracts lower fees.
He said the average daily trading value of the market grew by 24.4 per cent to RM24.3 billion from RM19.6 billion in the previous financial year contributed by higher trades from both domestic and foreign participants.
Going forward, Tajuddin said the strategic initiatives implemented over the years laid a solid foundation to place Bursa Malaysia in a better position to fulfil the needs of its stakeholders and ensure wider relevance and sustainability of its business for long-term value creation.
He added that the exchange would also continue to invest in people development and building resilient systems that are crucial towards supporting the growth agenda for the capital market. — Bernama