Two million Individual Investment Accounts registered on MOEX

The number of Individual Investment Accounts (IIA) opened with Moscow Exchange reached two million at the beginning of April 2020. In total, 4.57 million individuals have brokerage accounts with MOEX.

The two-millionth IIA was opened by a customer of VTB Bank in the Sverdlovsk Region. The account owner is a first-time investor who previously did not have a brokerage account.

At the beginning of 2020, there were 1.65 mln IIAs opened; 407,000 new accounts were opened in the first quarter.

Brokerage accounts account for 87% of the total, and trust management accounts represent the remaining 13%.

Among banks, Sberbank has opened the most IIAs for its customers (857,000 IIAs), followed by VTB Bank (336,000) and Tinkoff Bank (257,000). The leading brokerage firms in terms of IIAs opened are BCS (111,000), Finam (67,000) and Otkritie Broker (61,000), and the leading asset managers are Sberbank Asset Management (177,000 IIAs), Otkritie (29,000) and Region Group (26,000).

The top regions by number of IIAs are Moscow (240,000 IIAs), the Moscow region (130,000) and St. Petersburg (92,000). Other regions account for 80% of IIAs, with Sverdlovsk region (68,000), Bashkortostan (65,000) and Krasnodar krai (55,000) leading the list.

Since 1 January 2015, retail investors have had the choice of opening an IIA with a broker (brokerage account) or asset management company (trust management account). Individuals may make cash contributions of up to RUB 1,000,000 per calendar year. Funds may be invested into instruments including equities, government and corporate bonds (including Eurobonds), ETFs and mutual funds. In addition to gains earned on their investments, investors are entitled to tax rebates of 13% of their annual cash contribution (up to a limit of RUB 52,000) or to zero income tax on capital gains when the account is closed.