CSE ombudsman to be introduced soon

By Ishara Gamage

The Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) is considering introducing a separate CSE ombudsman or an independent authority to examine the CSE investor complains, a top CSE official told Ceylon FT.

“The CSE and regulator Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has already agreed to form an independent authority or appoint a separate CSE ombudsman to give an ultimatum for investor complaints,” he said.

According to him, both the entities were still undecided to appoint a separate fulltime CSE ombudsman due to lower number of annual investor related complains. 

Most probably appointing an independent authority will be an ideal and less costly way to treat investor grievances, he further said.

Currently, any investor can lodge his or her complaints to CSE secretariat and they will refer it to board for final consideration. If the investor or the stock broker disagrees with such decisions they can appeal it to the CSE four member dispute resolution committee for final consideration.  

“Existing all CSE companies handling methodologies were only within the CSE, therefore we have decided to set up completely separate body to give an ultimatum for investor complains, if they not agreed with the CSE internal complain handling methodologies,” he said.

According to market analyst Amal Sanderatne, the market (ASPI) has risen 36 per cent by 23 September since it hit the bottom on 12 May.

The ASPI is likely to rise over 7,000, within the next six months, the key reason for his view is very low interest rates, along with cheap valuations, optimism settling in within the sentiment cycle and positive signalling from the Government on equities.