The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) has revealed plans to digitize the Thailand capital markets infrastructure by launching a digital assets exchange platform by the year 2020 as part of its 2019-2021 three-year plan to create a digital assets ecosystem. In an announcement post by the SET, Pakorn Peetathawatchai, the SET President said that:
SET’s three-year strategic plan (2019-2021) will focus on the development of digital infrastructure platform, building one-stop digital capital market, opening up new investment opportunities and leveling up investment experiences for more convenience and higher speed. This will strengthen the “SET Make it ‘Work’ for Everyone” vision.
In the announcement, SET stated that it plans to roll out the digital experience onto the Thai capital markets in two key areas. The first one involves pursuing a paperless infrastructural environment. This involves the digitization of account opening process through electronic identification verification, electronic payment of stamp duty and direct-debit registration processes. In addition to this digitization process, SET plans to link the FundConnext mutual fund platform to Vestima, a global fund processing platform operated by Clearstream. This connection will allow for global investors in at least 56 countries to access Thai digital assets on the SET platform for exchange ideally contributing to improving liquidity.
The second front in which the SET aims at improving through digitization efforts is in collaboration between different stakeholders in the Thai capital markets ecosystem to ensure that new opportunities are created thereby transforming the investment landscape in the future. Both of these are grand gestures by the SET to want to be a more inclusive and global financial player.
According to Pakorn:
The SET strongly believes that the collaboration with all stakeholders in enhancing the existing infrastructures that are a backbone of the current ecosystem and in building the new digital asset ecosystem will be a turning point that will take the Thai capital market to the next level. SET stands ready to build and operate the capital market that is underpinned by trust.
This news comes in the backdrop of another bullish announcement by the Thai Securities and Exchange Commission which announced that it had approved the launch of the first initial coin offering (ICO) portal which will be in charge of project intelligence and investor protection by performing ICO audits, KYC procedures as well as auditing smart contract source codes.
