The number of investor accounts at BVB increased by a third last year

Investors at the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) had almost 180,000 accounts at the end of last year, 34% more than in December 2022, according to the data of the latest report of the Investor Compensation Fund (FCI).

The period includes the listing of Hidroelectrica, the largest public offering in the history of our capital market, which brought new investors to BVB, as well as four issues of Fidelis government bonds, denominated in lei and euro.

Among the 178,545 accounts reported by the Compensation Fund at the end of December 2023, a number of 37,294 accounts (20.9% of the total number) held only government securities issued by the Romanian State through the Ministry of Finance. FCI divides investors into fully compensable, whose portfolios are below the ceiling of 20,000 euros, compensable investors within the ceiling and non-compensable investors. At the end of last year, there were 123,438 fully compensable investor accounts (up 34% compared to December 2022), while the number of compensable investor accounts within the ceiling was 53,912, i.e. the maximum since December 2010, the oldest data provided by FCI, according to our analysis.

The average portfolio of a fully compensable investor was, at the end of last year, 4,219 euros, a slight increase compared to the level of the third quarter of 2023, while the average portfolio of a compensable investor within the cap amounted to 189,202 euros, with slightly below that of the end of September last year.

If the number of accounts is around 180,000, the number of active investors is much lower. At the end of the second semester of last year, there were 43,974 active accounts at the Financial Investment Services Companies (SSIF) according to the data from the latest report on the evolution of the capital market of the Financial Supervisory Authority (ASF).

It should be noted that the information published by the Investor Compensation Fund is based on the data reported by the fund members and does not take into account whether an investor uses one or more intermediaries, so the total number of investors is lower.