The number of trading accounts rose by 260,000 to reach nearly 2.2 million as of the end of 2018, according to the Vietnam Securities Depository (VSD).

Of the total, 2.14 million accounts or 98.2 per cent were individual Vietnamese investors.

The number was only 2.2 per cent of the country’s total population (nearly 97 million), which was modest, according to VSD.

The number of foreign investor accounts at the end of 2018 was nearly 28,300 – up 5,733 from the previous year.

According to VSD, the rapid increase in the number of securities trading accounts was due to the strong growth of the Vietnamese stock market.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange touched its record high of 1,204.33 points on April 9, 2018 – gaining 130 per cent from January 22, 2016.

The number of trading accounts in the Vietnamese market increased from 1.58 million in 2015 to nearly 2.2 million in 2018. – VNS