COL Financial finalizes more partnerships to boost income sources

MANILA, Philippines - Listed online brokerage firm COL Financial Group Inc. is finalizing more partnership deals with top asset managers and investment houses looking for new channels to distribute their products.

New agreements will make COL a one-stop shop for investments while boosting its fee-based income, an executive said.

“The intention of COL is to give customers a chance to invest in different funds out there,” said company president and CEO Conrado Bate said.

“Our role here is not only to provide these funds on the website but also to select funds that will meet their investment objectives at the least possible cost,” Bate said.

In January, the online brokerage firm entered into an agreement with Ayala Corp.’s BPI Asset Management and Trust Group and Sun Life Asset Management Company Inc., allowing COL to distribute mutual funds and Unit Investment Trust Funds, investment schemes.

Given these deals, COL can also start offering money market funds, bond funds, fixed income funds, actively-managed funds, balanced funds and index funds, making it a one-stop shop, Bate said.

These deals, Bate said, will allow COL to cater to different client preference and risk profile.

COL is confident its technological platform is ready to handle not only online trading transactions but investments in professionally-managed funds.

“[Partnering with different institutions] will also help expand the revenue base of COL,” Bate said, adding that management fees provide stable earnings and more predictable flow of revenues.

Given continuing market education efforts and improvement of product offerings, COL expects to grow its customer base by another 40-50 percent this year from 82,000 as of end-2013.

“We are still very confident about the growth of our customer base. We still see a lot of interest in the market despite the recent downturn,” Bate said.

The benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index is seen to remain in consolidation mode for the first half before ending the year at 6,600 to 6,900, driven by strong fundamentals amid the weakness in other emerging markets.

Client equity handled by the brokerage firm hit the $1 billion mark or P47.1 billion at the end of the third quarter compared with P34.4 billion in December 2012.

For its market share, COL cornered eight percent of the value turnover by local investors as of end-September from 7.7 percent a year ago.

In January to September, its income jumped 11.4 percent to a record P297 million while total revenues climbed by a quarter to P603.7 million as commission revenues picked up nearly a third to P452 million and interest income rose 10 percent to P151.1 million.