It looks like the online stock broking space is heating up, with the recent launch of Luna Securities Inc., a mobile-first, cloud-based, stock trading app that aims to make trading simple without complicating the experience.
Luna, which had its coming out event on March 9 at the Sheraton Manila, is founded and helmed by four industry veterans: John Gatmaytan (chair and nominee to the Philippine Stock Exchange or PSE), Francis Diaz (president), George Wong (treasurer) and long-time Wall Street information technology professional, Arnel Sicat (chief technology officer).
The Luna app is the first cloud-based trading app certified by the PSE, and promises its users a “true digital experience”: A simple design and intuitive experience, fully digital and paperless applications, 24/7 in-app official statements and receipts, instant account funding via partner banks and an approachable yet insightful and well-thought-out research material.
With the founders’ desire to expand access to the market by lowering barriers to entry, Luna’s features and services would be available to users at a minimum maintaining balance of just P500.
Asked what the inspiration was behind the brand Luna was, we heard that with Luna’s aspirations, the group is prepared to be “crazy like the moon, reaching for the stars, and always there to shine a light, day and night.”
And just like the famous brothers of Philippine history, Luna would be “revolutionary in approach, subversive in creating new ideas for the benefit of investors, world class in quality, but uniquely Filipino in spirit.”
Will the entry of several new players in the industry stir up excitement among Filipinos and push participants and trading volumes of the oldest stock exchange in Asia to match that of its neighbors? We’ll know soon enough.