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Enoch Yiu

Investors will soon be able to trade stocks and bet on horses using a pocket-sized mobile device.

Kingsmith AirData launched a mobile betting service for punters in September and will extend the service to stock trading from next Monday.

Online mobile trading will be made possible by Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEx), when it launches its third-generation Automatic Order Matching and Execution System (AMS/3).

About 40 brokers will launch Internet-based trading, allowing their clients to input orders to the exchange's AMS/3 trading system from their personal computers or mobile devices.

Another 200 brokers plan to launch online trading services in January.

Paul Fan Chor-ho, controlling shareholder and chairman of Kingsmith AirData, who is also a director of HKEx, said the company had linked up with about 10 brokerage houses to conduct online stock trading.

The brokers' clients would pay a monthly HK$380 subscription fee to use the mobile device and Kingsmith AirData's network.

The trading platform would be developed by eBroker Systems.

'The mobile device provides an alternative to the personal computer for investors looking to conduct online stock trading,' Mr Fan said.

Kingsmith's mobile device could execute trades faster than conventional mobile phones, he said.

He predicted that the launch of AMS/3 would lead to substantial increases in daily trading volumes, as had happened in other Asian countries.

'In South Korea, after the stock exchange launched its system to enable Internet trading . . . stock trading volume increased by five times,' he said. 'The same trend may also happen in Hong Kong.'

Mr Fan said Kingsmith AirData's parent company, Kingsmith Group, also had its eye on opportunities to act as a technology developer on projects involving electronic road pricing (ERP).

Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa, in his policy address last month, said it was time to look again at introducing ERP - a toll-road system. Singapore has used this system to solve traffic problems.

Mr Fan said Kingsmith provided the technology for testing ERP at the old Kai Tak airport site last year.

'If the SAR Government decided to implement ERP, our experience in the tests would help us to bid for the job,' he said.

Kingsmith has invested heavily in studying satellite global positioning devices - which are commonly used in ERP systems.

Mr Fan said Kingsmith would team up with other technology partners to bid on proposed ERP systems in London and Germany.

London was considering an ERP system in the urban area, while Germany wanted to introduce an electronic toll collection system for the 1.2 million heavy trucks that entered the country each year, he said.



Mobile online punters can switch into stocks