Russian President Vladimir Putin called for the protection of the money of Russians who play on the stock exchange, and said about the need to reduce risks when investing unqualified investors, Interfax reports. According to the head of state, this is necessary to prevent a repeat of the situation with defrauded equity holders.
Putin pointed out that against the background of a decrease in deposit rates, other forms of investment are becoming popular, in particular, the purchase of securities. “And this is by definition more risky than bank deposits. It is necessary to protect the interests of people who invest their money in the securities market, but are not professional investors,” he said.
The law on the categorization of investors, according to which the latter are divided into qualified and unqualified, was adopted in the summer of 2020. According to it, retail investors will be tested by their brokers. Some instruments will not be available to unqualified people, for example, shares of foreign companies included in the calculation of at least one foreign stock index from the regulator’s list.
In January 2021, the Central Bank still limited ordinary Russians who are not qualified investors in additional income by prohibiting them from buying some complex financial instruments. The restrictions included, for example, operations with bonds, the coupon yield of which depends on certain circumstances, derivatives (derivative financial instruments, the purpose of which is mainly to generate income from the difference in prices), if the agreements are not concluded through organized trading. The Central Bank considered that such operations are very difficult, and unqualified investors risk losing money.