Investors suffer for slow DSE website

Investors suffered yesterday as they were unable to access information on time as the website of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) was slow to load.

Stockbrokers alleged that they have been facing difficulties in executing and modifying trading orders on the system for the last couple of days when the turnover of the market had gone up.

"I could not see the share prices on time due to the problem of the website. But every second is very important in stock trading," said stock investor Mostafa Amin.

This type of problem can dent investors' confidence, so the bourse should be serious on it, Amin added.

A DSE official preferring anonymity said the bourse launched a new website on Tuesday with a mobile view for the convenience of investors.

But some technical problems arose on the first day causing the investors' sufferings to arise, the official added.

The stock market regulator is seriously displeased with the premier bourse's top officials for launching the new website without a test run.

It could have run the new website simultaneously with the old one for a few days, said a top official of the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission, preferring anonymity.

Once the new one was found to be running okay and flexible then the old one could have been shut down, he said. "This is the practice the world over."

But the DSE suddenly changed its website without carrying out a test run and the bourse even did not inform the regulator that a new website will be run, the BSEC official added.

Regarding the problems with trading, Md Rasel, manager of Brac EPL Stock Brokerage, said it takes three to four minutes to post pre-orders.

During trading hours, it sometimes takes 15 to 30 seconds to post an order or make modifications, he said, adding that sometimes the system also froze, again taking too long to execute orders.

"The mobile app has also not been working well for a couple of days, so some of the app users called us over the phone to execute their desired trade."

Sharif Anwar Hossain, president of the DSE Brokers Association, echoed the same. "It takes some time to execute but time is valuable here."

If the DSE starts the pre-opening and post-closing advantage, the problem might get solved, Hossain added.

The DSE is going to seek the official permission from the BSEC so that stock trading orders can be posted on the trading system 15 minutes before the start of a session.

Once an order is posted in this way, the share trading would be executed once the official trading hours begin.

On the other hand, investors will be allowed to trade shares 10 minutes past the trading hours, a form of post-closing advantage. In that case, the trade would take place based on the closing price.

"As the number of trading orders is too high, it creates some problems but the advantages might solve the problems," Hossain said.