The Securities and Exchange Commission has suspended all kind of activities of expanding business including opening new branches by brokerage houses until further order.
The stock market regulatory body issued an order in this connection on Tuesday, an official of a brokerage house said on Thursday.
Earlier, the SEC had asked the brokerages not to open any branch outside the divisional headquarters.
‘In the current market condition there would hardly be any expansion move by brokerage houses,’ said the official.
He said, ‘The SEC’s directive is unnecessary as some brokerage houses are even thinking to cut down their business.’
He said as the daily turnover of the market dropped significantly over the last two months, the brokerage houses had been facing difficulty in maintaining their operational expenses.
‘When the market skyrocketed from September to mid December, many houses went for rapid expansion. But the recent turmoil in the market pushed them into trouble in maintaining the daily expenses of the additional branches,’ he said.
Two hundred and sixteen members of the Dhaka Stock Exchange have 624 branch offices in total to operate stock business across the country. The number of branches was 388 in 2008 when the member was 272.
Courtesy of New Age
