Capital Alliance pitches for retail base with futurist digitisation
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For the past 31 years since the advent of the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE), the sale and purchase of stocks hasn’t changed much. Stock trading typically took place at the CSE (and before that in the rooms of brokers) and during trading hours when the market was open.
Today, it’s hard to imagine that the opportunity to invest was ever limited by time and space with the advent of Capital Alliance (CAL) launching a new digital technology that enables a faster way via a digital signature through CAL’s financial services, the only one of its kind in the country.
The digital signature process was legalised in 2006 but the CSE never made use of it and industry players say that most aren’t aware of this. The digital signature process has been formulated in compliance with the provisions of the Electronic Transactions Act No. 19 of 2006.
“It’s time that something more should be done about it,” one analyst said.
CAL Group Managing Director and CEO Ajith Fernando told the Business Times on the sidelines of this launch this week that by enabling digital signatures for their customers online, CAL which has institutional clients will now make a pitch for retail clients. “We were an institutional player thus far as we didn’t see an economical way of taking our products to the retail market, but this service enables us to enter the retail space.
Our company has always been technology-driven with a fully integrated software system that seamlessly integrates the back-office system with an online trading system,” he said adding that as they have effectively created a new gateway for clients to trade online with minimal hassle, CAL can attract retailers in a cost effective manner. “This is mainly as it has an ease-of-use and flexibility to our clients to conduct their transactions online, at their convenience, and in a secure manner from anywhere, anytime.”
He said that they hope to attract around 20,000 new accounts by the end of this year and are quite bullish on attracting Sri Lankans working overseas.
“They could now log in and create an account and this will bring more accounts to the CSE,” Mr. Fernando said.
“This technology worth around Rs. 30 million empowers customers to open an account by placing digital signatures while being anywhere in the world, thus doing away with paperwork. This innovation is yet another testimony of CAL’s commitment to deliver excellence in execution, world-class research and product innovation.”
The system comprises of both automatic and manual verifications to ensure the authenticity of customers. There are some foolproof automatic validation measures that are inbuilt in the system in order to safeguard client’s interest and data security. Last year Cal also launched an unique mobile application for trading ‘CAL ONLINE’, which provides access to real-time information on Equity and Debt markets and the ability to trade real-time in a seamless manner from mobiles or tablets.