Share Market to reopen from today

Kathmandu, June 28

 Share market will reopen from Monday, June 29.

A meeting of the Board of Directors of the Securities Board of Nepal (SEBON) on Sunday decided to direct the Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) to open the market from Monday.

The SEBON has asked the stakeholders to resort to electronic channel for share and money transfer. “Investors, brokers, NEPSE, CDS and Clearing and merchant banks should follow the COVID-19 safety guidelines published earlier,” said the capital market regulator.

It said that the companies and offices would be punished in case they did not strictly adhere to the required safety measures.

Stock brokerage firms are not allowed to run their screen room while the investors were urged to conduct the share transactions from their home as far as possible. SEBON said that the arrangements made so far would facilitate the investors to make their share transactions from their own home.

The responsibility to set the market opening time, circuit break and price limit is given to NEPSE which is asked to set provision to create stability in the transactions in the secondary market.

Although the government had loosened the lockdown two weeks ago, the share market is closed even though other businesses, that are riskier than the capital market, are in operation. The SEBON had formed a team to look into the matter and it decided to reopen the market as per the recommendation of the team.

To facilitate the electronic transaction, CDSC has develop a system to transfer the shares electronically after testing it by the brokers. SEBON had directed the NEPSE to develop an online system for the entire share transaction process.

Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 29 June 2020.