Solon bats for cheaper ways for Filipinos to invest

MANILA – A lawmaker on Wednesday underscored the need to pass a legal fra ework for collective investment schemes (CIS) to make it easier and cheaper for working Filipinos to invest in legitimate securities.

uring the hearing of the ouse Coittee on cono ic ffairs, lbay ep. Joey Salceda said investors need to shell out significant a ounts of cash to ake investments in “clunky” assets such as real estate or businesses because existing laws do not expressly provide for C .

A collective investment scheme is an “arrangement where funds are pooled for the purpose of investing in securities and other investments.” ur assets tend to be clunky . n finance, we call this asset divisibility. The idea is that assets can be divided into infinitesimally small units so that the smallest retail investor can participate in investing an asset. ecause we do not have a legislated CIS framework, most of our assets cannot be divided a ong s aller investors,” he said.

“In short, if you are a retail investor, it s expensive to get started. urther ore, retail investors tend to invest individually, and therefore speculatively. Individually, it is also expensive to get a personal fund manager who can make more intelligent decisions for the average investor,” he added. e said ground rules ust be set, particularly outlining the duties and responsibilities of the fund manager, establishing certain para eters regarding the anageent and decision- aking for the fund, and delineating custodianship arrangements. einvest ent ra ework for eal state Investment Trust eanwhile, the ouse of epresentatives approved on second reading House Bill 7525, providing for a reinvestment framework for Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) by amending Republic Act No. 9856, or the REIT law.

Salceda pointed this entry barrier as the rationale for a framework for investing collectively.

“This is why we need a stronger, broader market for collective investment schemes. Collective investment schemes reduce the fixed costs of fund anage ent and administration,” he said.

The House panel, during the hearing, created a technical working group to finetune the proposal.

MANILA – Philippine Franchise Association (PFA) president Chris Lim said

Wednesday the majority of franchising businesses will continue open in the prov- inces in the succeeding years as growth has spread outside Metro Manila.

In a press conference in Quezon City, Lim said many people went back to their provinces during the peak of the pandemic, wherein some have invested their money into franchising businesses.

There were also people who stayed and found new jobs in the provinces following the pandemic, which was expected to boost consumer spending outside the National Capital Region (NCR).

“Franchising is no longer centralized in NCR because the spending power has been unlocked all over the Philippines. I think that is what franchising is all about. Let’s grow beyond NCR, (there are) so many million people here, but there are many potential(s) all over (the country),” Lim told the Philippine News Agency on the sidelines of the event.

He said the industry is also a catalyst to help the country achieve the upper middle-income status in the near term.

Lim said franchising is an “equalizer”