Benefits of Sahulat Account and How to get started

Sahulat Account Pakistan is a variant of the trading account used for the purpose of buying and selling of shares. It has certain features. The main objective of sahulat account introduction is to open an account to get yourself acquainted with the capital market functioning, and trading and investment routines in order to target good returns in a variety of products offered at Pakistan Stock Exchange. we have a population of over 220 million with over 60% below the age of 30. So, we have quite a young population, who is tech savvy, who is exposed to a lot of information, who are internet users, all that stuff. The younger people certainly know more about the technology and all these gadgets. Pakistan has a population of more than 220 million, and the number of registered investors is nearly 260,000. In India, there are about 20 million investors. Then China has 178 million, as you can see. So in terms of investor population in comparison to total population, if you compare these neighboring markets, 1.67% India, 12.6% China while Indonesia is 0.61%, whereas we are not ranked in a great comparison with only 0.12%. So, when we analyse this data and we keep on working on this, there are many structural changes made over the period, and how to address this dichotomy. We have such a good young population and why we have such a small investor base in our country, we identified some of the reasons and keep on working on them, and a few of them are linked with our topic.

But let’s talk a bit more about demographics. We have 60 million internet users, and the number is growing at the rate of 20%. Our internet penetration is very encouraging, still on its upward trend. Mobile connections are in the kind of increase, so over 75% of the total population do have the  mobile connections. So, the key Initiatives we have taken are based on the feedback we got and the problems pertaining to account’s opening process that was used to be quite lengthy and at times, a lot of information and a lot of complexities are over there. So, one of the key initiatives is that we simplified and shortened the account’s opening form which used to be of sixteen or seventeen pages, and now it has come down to only three pages with key information and documentation. And earlier this year, online account opening was introduced which means the investors can come on board, open an account electronically without signing the documents and visiting the brokerage house. Another Interesting initiative PSX is working on, with the help of State Bank, is the possibility of sharing KYC information between the banks and the brokerage funds. So, with these initiatives, PSX tried to address these key areas and Alhamdulillah the return is visible now and our investor population has been increasing since last year and especially after the introduction of online account.

So now what is Sahulat? As the name suggests, Sahulat is about facilitation. Sahulat is about easiness. It’s a trading account in which KYC information is very much simplified, and it is primarily offered for the low-risk investor category because stock exchange, as you know, it provides you at times better than average returns but at the same time, it does carry certain risks. So, for investor, who is just trying to get himself acquainted with the stock market, it's a very low risk category account which is being introduced. The key benefit of this account is that it's an easy entry into the market, so you don't get through all those detailed documentations. I will especially talk about documents which don’t require you to provide the sources of income. Proof of residence is another document, which sometimes people find it difficult to produce it.  If you are doing the business online or e-commerce or something, it's difficult to sometimes produce all those documents and even if when you produce, it normally takes a little longer to come on board.

Apart from this, it has a good PKR 800,000 limit which you can use to manage your portfolio. On boarding, it's completely digital and once you get onboarded, Abbasi and Company Private Limited are offering very state of the art trading platforms to its investors to seamlessly execute their transactions and we provide the customer support also. This category aligns well with the “Asaan Digital Account”, which has recently been introduced by the State Bank of Pakistan. As you must need a bank account to open a trading account and bank account has its own requirements, this Asaan Digital Account is opened online digitally. Asaan Digital Account with Sahulat account is a great combination. Why? Because you can open a bank account and a brokerage account without having to visit any branch. No documentation is required and its all-digital, so I think that’s a great combination. 

Now how you can open PSX trading account digitally? You have to visit www.abbasiandcompany.com, enter the basic information and you get an OTP for the verification. Once you have entered the OTP, a form is visible, and you enter the remaining key information in the said form. Once the form is submitted, NCCPL, which is a national clearing company of Pakistan, who opens the UIN and review it. Once it finds it okay, an account gets created and your trading gets started. At best, if all the information is completely provided. It literally takes few hours to come on board, transfer the funds and get started. The requirements to open an account are very basic. The only document you need to provide is your national ID card; rest all is only information. No other documents are required. Biometric verification is also exempted for this account and effectively for all online accounts opening these days. So, this was the process and with Sahulat account, this process gets even quicker because the bank account has opened already, and you don’t need to provide much information to open your brokerage account.

Now, when you say try out this business and the next question would be, “Okay, so based on what, what's an offer?” So, here we will just talk about the opportunity. As they say, KSE-100 index of PSX has annual average returns of 15% in the past ten years. So, it's a quite reasonable return over this period. 10 years is a reasonable time to measure the performance of an investment. Right now, PSX has more than 530 listed companies. The interesting thing is 226 of those companies are under Shariah compliance. So, if you prefer to trade in Shariah compliance shares, there are many options available for you.

Sahulat account is less risky account as the marginal trading and futures trading is not allowed in this account. Sahulat account in introduce housewife, students and the persons with no document of source of income.