Consolidation of professional securities market participants continues in 2017

In the first quarter they numbered 659 companies, reports the Review of the Key Indicators of Professional Financial Market Participants.

The number of customers of professional securities market participants has been growing for several quarters in a row. The brokerage segment has registered the most pronounced increase, with non-bank financial institutions adding 32.9 thousand customers and credit institutions attracting another 20.1 thousand clients. The proportion of active brokerage customers shrank to 15.5% in non-bank financial institutions and to 9.0% in credit institutions.

The number of individual investment accounts (IIA) totalled 210 thousand at the end of the first quarter.

Monthly average growth of new IIAs dropped to 5.1 thousand in the first quarter of 2017 compared to 14.2 thousand in the last quarter of 2016. The year-end usually sees a spike in IIA openings as investors seek to receive tax deductions for the past year, after which account openings begin to decline.

Aggregate assets of non-bank financial institutions (other than registrars) stood at 688.4 billion rubles at the end of the first quarter of 2017, having dropped by 22.7% against the same period of the previous year. In the first quarter of 2017 the assets to GDP ratio of non-bank financial institutions (other than registrars) was 0.8% against 1.1% a year earlier.