A quarter of the stock portfolios on the Bucharest Stock Exchange belongs to individual investors, some 80,000 people who have shares worth some EUR 1.1 billion on the BSE.

The rest of three quarters – or some EUR 3.5 billion- is held by companies or institutional investors, according to data from the Investors Compensation Fund.

Individual investments on the BSE are still low compared to the potential of the market and compared to other stock markets in the region. Romanians still prefer to keep their money in bank deposits, which bring an average interest rate of 4 percent. The stock of deposits in Romania is of about EUR 22 billion, 20 times higher than their investments on the stock market.

The majority of the 80,000 individual investors on the local stock market have portfolios below EUR 20,000. A small investor's average portfolio was at the end of September 2013 of around EUR 1,800, while larger investors – those with portfolios above EUR 20,000 – had an average investment of EUR 196,000.

The Investors Compensation Fund collects contributions from members- brokerage companies- and pays out compensation to the investors when a member fails to return the money and/or the financial instruments owed by or belonging to investors, which have been held and/or managed on their behalf. The compensation limit is of EUR 20,000 per investor. The full report from the Fund is here (in Romanian). 

editor@romania-insider.com