KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia Bhd’s chief executive officer (CEO) Datuk Tajuddin Atan said the company hopes to maintain its performance this year despite a challenging capital market environment.

“I believe that given the fundamentals that we have, the performance of Bursa will, if not equal, maybe maintain what we have at this point of time,” said Tajuddin during a short break in the company’s annual general meeting yesterday.

Tajuddin hopes Bursa will be able to maintain the growth that it has been seeing for the past six years by improving its efficiency, product offering and promotion of its products and services.

“Why I say promoting is because last years’ performance was anchored by both domestic and foreign institutions. The derivative business and BSAS (Bursa Suq Al-Sila) came to contribute to the performance of Bursa,” he said.

For its financial year ended Dec 31, 2014, Bursa reported a 15% gain in net profit of RM198.22 million from RM173.07 million the year before. This was on the back of a 6.05% increase in revenue to RM503.75 million from RM474.99 million. 

Tajuddin said Bursa has a few products in the pipeline to be launched this year. “We are working on a variety of products that will complement the growth of the market. Suffice to say, we are looking at the derivatives side to actually see what products we can launch next,” he explained. 

Commenting on the local capital market, Tajuddin said, “I think 2015 will be a challenging year, given the global market volatility, the volatility on commodity prices and also external factors.”

Nevertheless, the strength and resilience of the local market will continue to grow and this will in turn help Bursa, as a company, maintain its performance, Tajuddin said.

“With all the fundamentals and alignments which will take place to show the growth of the Malaysian economy’s continued growth … the continuation of the capital market will also move in tandem with the economy,” he added.

Meanwhile, Tajuddin stressed that the 6% goods and services tax (GST) will be imposed only on trading fees and not on the value of the securities. 

“Principally, GST is charged on services. Similarly, clearing fees and brokerage fees are a service. So there is no exemption,” said Bursa’s director of corporate services Rosidah Baharom, noting that the same charges will be applied for online transactions.

Bursa’s chief regulatory officer Selvarany Rasiah, on the other hand, said GST will only have minimal impact on trading market costs. 

“When you make out the 6% on the brokerage fee, it’s not very high in absolute terms. So we don’t believe that it will act as a dampener on trading,” she said.

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on April 1, 2015.