Only 19 brokerages fully compliant with rules — PSE

Majority of local brokerages violated trading rules last year, the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) announced yesterday. Only 19 out of 66 companies had fully complied with the rules, results of last year’s annual regulatory audit of trading participants showed. Erring companies were levied fines ranging from P5,000 to as much as P140,000 and some were also suspended for violations, which included late filing of audited financial statements, failure to provide company information to investors and improper documentation of transactions. Among the other trading errors noted were improper stamping of order tickets, salesmen maintaining two personal accounts with trading participants and nondisclosure of transactions to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The exchange detailed the results of the 2009 audit in an April 16 memorandum to brokers posted on its Website on Wednesday. The fines and penalties levied by the PSE reached at a little over P3 million. The stiffest fine went to Westlink Global Equities, Inc., which was found — among other violations — to have engaged in businesses other than being a broker-dealer. It was ordered to pay P140,000 and slapped with a 15-day trading suspension. Angping and Associates Securities, Inc., meanwhile, was fined P110,000 for creating a false or misleading appearance of active trading, the bourse said. Officials of Westlink and Angping were not immediately available for comment. All other fines on the PSE list were well under P100,000. Most common were penalties worth P20,000 or P50,000. To date, there are 182 accredited trading participants, 48 of which are inactive. The PSE, the country’s only stock exchange, has 250 listed companies. The 19 brokers said to be fully compliant as of April 16 were Alakor Securities Corp.; Asiasec Equities, Inc.; BPI Securities Corp.; CLSA Philippines Inc.; Cualoping Securities Corp.; Deutsche Regis Partners, Inc., F. Yap Securities, Inc.; Globalinks Securities & Stocks, Inc.; Guild Securities, Inc.; H. E. Bennett Securities, Inc.; Optimum Securities Corp.; Philippine Equity Partners Securities, Inc.; RCBC Securities, Inc.; SB Equities, Inc.; Solar Securities, Inc.; Strategic Equities Corp.; Tri-State Securities, Inc.; Wealth Securities, Inc.; and Yao & Zialcita, Inc. — from a report byNeil Jerome S. Morales, BusinessWorld