Local brokerage firm to be acquired by Indonesian stock trading platform Stockbit

The Financial Services Authority (OJK) has approved Stockbit’s acquisition of Mahakarya Artha Sekuritas, an Indonesian stock trading platform and community.

The deal’s worth isn’t known.

Stockbit’s brocking partner Mahakarya Artha Sekuritas has been renamed Stockbit Sekuritas, according to TechinAsia.

Mahakarya customers will be able to create stock accounts and trade on the Indonesian Stock Exchange using the Stockbit app as a result of the purchase.

In May of this year, Sequoia Capital India sponsored a US $65 million expansion round for Bibit, a mutual fund investment app bought by Stockbit in 2019. In 2019, East Ventures led a Series A round of fundraising for the Stockbit app, which raised an unknown sum.

Stockbit began as a social network for stock investors in 2013, before evolving into an app that combines stock trading, data gathering, and social networking. Its Bibit and competitors strive to make capital investing easier for first-time investors by charging a lower charge and demanding a smaller first investment amount than traditional brokerages.

Stockbit is obliged to partner with established securities companies like Sinarmas Sekuritas in order to provide stock trading services to its consumers. Before Stockbit’s tie-up with Mahakarya, this collaboration came to an end in August.

Retail investors in Indonesia increased by 56% year over year in 2020, according to OJK. Mutual fund investors increased by 78% year over year to 3.2 million.

Financial literacy in the country’s capital market, on the other hand, remains low at 4.9 percent, with just 2.69 million retail stock investors out of a population of 270 million.

This creates prospects for financial services, which have been boosted by the COVID-19 epidemic, when consumers took advantage of a market dip and went online.

In the stock and mutual fund investing industry, Indonesia generated a unicorn last month. After a US $153 million Series B financing, Ajaib, a Robinhood-like mobile-first stock and mutual fund investment platform, became a billion-dollar firm. The app promises to have the lowest brokerage costs in the industry and does not demand a minimum deposit to start a brokerage account.