The Philippine Stock Exchange has adopted a policy that will hide the identity of stockbrokers that execute orders during trading.

The PSE in a statement said the board agreed to adopt the broker anonymity rule in stock transactions as a means to level the playing field among market participants and increase liquidity.

PSE president and chief executive Francis Lim said the policy of removing the display on broker identifiers for executing orders during trading was considered best practice in major markets, such as US, China, Japan, Korea and Australia.

The Bursa Malaysia, Singapore Exchange Ltd., and the Stock Exchange of Thailand are implementing the same policy.

?By applying international best practices in our operations, the board?s decision to adopt this policy realizes our vision of raising the level of the exchange at par with developed exchanges,? Lim said.

The codes of buying and selling brokers in every matched trade under the current system are displayed on the screens of market participants.

Investors tend to be more worried of the possibility of front-running or unnecessarily facing higher execution costs when market players know the buyer or seller. Jenniffer B. Austria