Maltese citizens are increasingly turning to information and communication technology for up-to date information on financial investments, according to Rizzo, Farrugia & Co. Stockbrokers Ltd, who have launched their brand new website at www.rizzofarrugia.com.
"We believe that the internet has become an indispensable tool for most companies and likewise we wish to continue to invest to ensure that our portal remains the most popular financial site covering the local capital market," Edward Rizzo, director at the stockbroking company, told i-Tech. The website is mainly used to provide information and news to users.
"With the rapid growth in internet usage (even locally), investors have also become accustomed to use the internet to keep informed on financial market movements especially following the extraordinary events over the past couple of months. We believe that the usage of internet and the importance of this technology in modern business practices can only grow and we have therefore upgraded our systems in this respect and aim to continue to seek ways of using IT in communicating with our clients," added Mr Rizzo.
This is the fifth website for Rizzo, Farrugia & Co. since the first launch in 1995. The new site was launched in conjunction with a rebranding exercise and new visual identity. Since the launch on September 1 it has already surpassed expectations in terms of access, registering several hundred unique users every day.
One of the new features includes the ability to follow live trading as deals are executed during the trading session on the Malta Stock Exchange between 10.45 a.m. and 12.30 p.m. While prices and other data including outstanding bids and offers of all shares, corporate bonds and Malta government stocks are updated shortly after the close of the trading session, users can view historic prices of listed equity, government stock, corporate bonds and also a selected list of funds through the price archive which provides data as far back as 1999.
The new website also provides important documents which users can download such as company presentations, prospectuses of bond issues and weekly newspaper contributions by Rizzo, Farrugia & Co. Users may also sign up to a free notification service, which will enable them to receive all the latest news items posted on the website directly to their e-mail address, and a weekly market report which is sent by e-mail every Friday covering the main highlights of the week (for company clients only). While recent trends show an increasing role of technology in financial services, investors are still prone to trade directly with their broker. Mr Rizzo believes that the role of ICT is to facilitate communication between the stockbroker and the investor rather than to eliminate the middleman completely.
"The online banking systems by the major banks have helped to increase internet usage for financial services transactions. We have also felt this as more clients are willing to communicate by e-mail and transfer funds online".
"However, with trading activity on the equity market still so low following the loss of investor confidence in the aftermath of recent events, I believe it is still too early before one can imagine a system which would enable an investor to purchase or sell shares directly with the Malta Stock Exchange trading mechanism. The manual intervention of the stockbroker would still be required at a certain stage of the process. Having said this however, some of our clients have become accustomed to transmitting their orders via e-mail and we ensure that these are processed immediately and confirmed to the client shortly after execution," concluded Mr Rizzo.