The interest of Czech investors in foreign markets has grown by dozens of percent year on year. Businesses on the capital market, therefore, are preparing a number of new incentives in order to support the investors’ appetite.
According to UniCredit Bank spokesman Tomáš Pavlík, people’s interest in foreign investments is increasing not only thanks to falling service fees, but also thanks to increasing options to handle transactions over the internet and over the phone, as well as the investors’ better foreign language skills. “Over the course of last year the ratio of investments changed from 70% to 30% to 55% to 45%, but it still favours the local market,” said Martin Kodýdek, business director for Patria.
Thanks to the growing number of foreign retail deals, entrepreneurs are preparing to line up new projects in the second half of this year. They hope this will help increase demand for their services. “I can say that the new projects we’re planning to introduce have to do with foreign financial markets,” said Kodýdek. But he would not disclose details. “In autumn we are planning to expand our services by allowing our clients direct access to the US market through online trading,” said Zuzana Doležalová, spokeswoman for Atlantic. According to Remigiusz Górski, XT Brokers, a trader that focuses on currencies, is also planning to expand its international market financial services. And according to Jiří Vodička RM-Systém, a trader that focuses on real estate, wants to introduce trading projects with foreign connection.
But despite the multitude of options, most people interested in foreign investments are mostly interested in stocks rather than commodities or derivative instruments, according to traders. Our clients are mostly interested in stocks,” said Doležalová. She says there is lower interest in derivative instruments because this is more complicated. “Not many investors understand the principle behind these structured products, especially if the certificates are tied to a currency, a commodity or a basket of goods,” added Doležalová.
