BSEC to go for automation to curb manipulation

The Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) will go for full automation of all its process so that manipulation of stocks can be curbed in the market. 

"The main target is to rein in manipulation," said Saifur Rahman, an executive director of the BSEC, yesterday.

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"Manipulation can be witnessed in every stock market in the world so it cannot be said that it will be stopped. Because, if we stop one way of manipulation, then they (manipulators) innovate new techniques," he said.

The BSEC is not sitting idle, he told a press conference organised by the BSEC on its premises to announce holding a two-day international meeting starting tomorrow.

The regulator is also working relentlessly to identify every process of manipulation and is focusing on the automation to track down the manipulators and hand down exemplary punishment, said Rahman.

The BSEC's enforcement department is handing out punishments everyday and the BSEC is trying its best to ensure proper and highest punishment, he said.

It is also working to amend the securities laws so that the BSEC can hand down apt punishments, Rahman added.

One automation fully comes about, forgery and manipulation in the stock market will be reduced, said Mohammad Rezaul Karim, spokesperson of the BSEC.

The BSEC took many steps and handed down punishments in the last two years, more than that in many other countries, he said.

On withdrawal of the floor price, Karim said it would come about if the stock market's health turns out for the better.

"Turnover of the market is now low due to the floor price. However, the stock price of good companies was not fall for the safeguarding process," he said.

At the end of last July, the BSEC set the floor price of every stock to halt the free fall of the market indices amidst global economic uncertainties.

The floor price was the average of the closing prices on July 28 of this year and the preceding four days.

Afterwards in December, the BSEC lifted the floor price for 169 companies in order to make the stock market vibrant.

The regulator has set the circuit breaker in a way such that the companies' stock prices would now be allowed to drop more than 1 per cent based on the previous day's closing price.