Securities Commission chairman Datuk Mohammad Faiz Azmi.
KUALA LUMPUR: The capital market achieved an all-time high of RM4.2 trillion last year, driven by strong growth in stock market capitalisation and bonds and sukuk.
For bonds and sukuk issuances, RM124.2bil was raised while the Islamic capital market grew by 8.5% to RM2.6 trillion.
The assets under management (AUM) of the fund management industry also hit a new benchmark of RM1.1 trillion, due to a strong global equity market performance.
Last year also recorded a higher amount in fund-raising activities, growing to RM138.9bil, which included 55 initial public offerings that raised RM7.42bil.
Securities Commission (SC) chairman Datuk Mohammad Faiz Azmi said the SC had managed a strong footfall in terms of local currency support funding.
“If you are to compare this to the gross domestic product, Malaysia’s bond market is the largest in the Asean region,” he said at a press conference in conjunction with the SC’s Annual Report 2024 yesterday.
Mohammad Faiz added that despite the market doing well, the SC recorded a loss of RM2mil but it was lower than the RM170mil to RM180mil it lost back in 2023.
“How we managed to reduce the losses was from the revenue side, we had about RM300mil in revenue in 2024. It comes mainly from the levies that are imposed every time an investor buys or sells a share,” he said, adding that the levies increased because the market was doing well.
Mohammad Faiz explained that this year, it is looking for ways to cut the cost, reiterating that the SC is not a profit-making entity and will never be.
“We’ve only ever tried to cover the cost. This is also why this year we are looking at how we can save, and one big aspect we identified was the defined benefit liability.
“This is a legacy issue, whereby employees that joined before 2003 were promised a lifetime of medical benefits,” he said.
According to Mohammad Faiz, as at the end of 2024, these 128 employees, some retired and others still working, were offered a lump sum of money not to continue exercising their rights.
On ways of increasing income, Mohammad Faiz said the fee structure review will be submitted to the government by the end of this month, but is likely to only be implemented next year.
“We’re looking at having a fair and equitable fee for intermediaries within the capital market. It will not be one size fits all, we’re not seeking to go to the commodity market and ask for fees. We don’t regulate them anyway,” he said.
Mohammad Faiz added that the goal was not for these intermediaries to pass on the cost to customers, but for them to bear it on their own.
“We’ve been in discussions with the relevant parties, about 100 of them. We have been asking to hear their side and how we can mutually decide on a number that will work for everyone,” he said.
Meanwhile, for this year, Mohammad Faiz said the SC will remain cautiously optimistic for a continuous good market on the basis of a number of reasons.
“We have good fundamentals here, the government has carried out many of the things it said it would do.
“On top of that, our market is well run and safe to invest in, which is how we have managed to maintain foreign investment interest,” he said.
Mohammad Faiz noted that with US president Donald Trump now in power, he cannot predict what might happen but said there are very few listed Malaysian firms that have direct exposure to the US.
