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In 2020, nearly 393,659 new domestic accounts were opened, up 109 percent year-on-year, the highest ever figure recorded in the country to date, according to the Vietnam Securities Depository (VSD).
This took the total number of accounts to nearly 2.77 million last year, equivalent to 2.8 percent of Vietnam's population.
Along with individual investors, domestic organizations opened 168 new brokerage accounts last month, the highest in the past four years, raising the total to 11,251 accounts.
While it might seem a surprise that this has happened despite the Covid-19 pandemic, analysts say adverse impacts on other investment modes have benefited the stock market.
They say declining bank interest rates is a factor that has caused more people to switch to stocks, and another is the quick recovery staged by the stock market after hitting its bottom in March when Vietnam recorded a surge in the number of Covid-19 cases.
With the pandemic acting as a drag on credit growth, banks have lowered their 12-month deposit rates to 5.6 percent. Last August the State Bank of Vietnam revised its credit growth target for 2020 from 14 percent to 10.1 percent. The central bank has also cut its policy rates four times last year to boost economic activity. The deposit rates were around 7 percent at the beginning of last year.
The government targets having 3 percent of the population participating in equity markets by the end of this year and 5 percent by 2025 under its Scheme for Restructuring Securities and Insurance Markets, which it finalized in early 2019.
