Securities companies drastically reduce staff, increase investment in technology

Many securities companies have drastically reduced their staff, instead investing in technology - Illustration photo: QUOC TUAN

VPS is a securities company that has maintained the No. 1 position in brokerage market share for 17 consecutive quarters. However, since last year, this market share has tended to decline.

Human resources of many big companies are increasingly "shrinking"

A few years ago, VPS's way of gaining market share was to dramatically increase the number of brokers. But if in 2021 the company had 2,509 people (not counting the large team of collaborators), by the end of 2024, VPS's total staff would be 1,738, a decrease of nearly 800 people after 3 years.

Many large securities companies are also reducing their staff. For example, at VNDirect, the total number of employees at the end of the first quarter of 2025 was 1,018, a decrease of nearly 520 people compared to the end of 2022.

SSI also reduced nearly 150 employees after only the first 3 months of this year, to 1,406 employees at the end of March 2025. Compared to more than 2 years ago, the decrease was up to nearly 200 people.

There are even places that are forced to change their operating model, causing the number of employees to decrease by half. For example, Tan Viet Securities had 526 employees at the beginning of 2022, but by the end of March this year, there were 215 employees, a decrease of nearly 60%.

"It's not until now that we have streamlined our organization. The strong development of digitalization and increasingly difficult business results have created great pressure for reform," said the deputy general director of a securities company in Hanoi .

Meanwhile, the head of a securities company in Ho Chi Minh City said that he had drastically "cut" the team of brokerage collaborators. Instead, the consulting department, responsible for making products for customers, only has... 5 people but they exploit data and technology well.

Technology is shaping the game

In contrast to the loss of market share of the "big guys" is the impressive growth of a number of securities companies that are "backed" by capital and "famous" in technology.

For example, TCBS - a company that once attracted attention when it announced that it would use technology to replace brokerage activities - jumped from the top 6 market share with 5.12% in 2022 to the top 3 with 7.18% in 2024. Without needing thousands of employees, by the end of the first quarter of this year, TCBS had a total of 538 employees.

Meanwhile, DNSE - a technology securities company from 9.98% market share in Q4-2024, by Q1-2025 has grown by nearly 7%, second only to the top 1 VPS. At the end of March this year, DNSE's total staff was only about 245 people. But the department that accounts for a large proportion of DNSE is the technology department, the team that develops and creates products on social networks.

According to a DNSE representative, the department that is vulnerable to AI replacement at this company is the department that performs administrative, accounting, customer care and investment consulting tasks. "Our investment consulting department already has an AI chat "employee" named Ensa," said a DNSE representative.

Ensa is a combination of AI and a stock data system. The effectiveness is evident when traditional brokerages can only serve a few dozen investors at a time, virtual stock assistants can serve thousands of customers at the same time. Mr. Nguyen Phuc Nguyen - Director of Information Technology of Bao Viet Securities - even said that the company also invested in AI to "consult" and upgrade the company's own analysis team.

Things AI can't "compete" with... humans

Mr. Truong Hien Phuong - senior director of KIS Vietnam Securities - said that any job with repetitive tasks is at risk of losing its job to AI.

However, Mr. Phuong believes that stock investment consulting requires sensitivity and judgment, which "rice-based" human resources are showing an advantage over. Furthermore, AI has no emotions and cannot grasp the psychology of customers.

According to Mr. Phuong, customers have large net assets, possibly several hundred billion VND, and are elderly or busy, so they still need consultants.

This person revealed that the brokerage profession still brings a good income if you manage a large number of customers. With a commission rate of 50 - 60%, or even higher, there are many brokers who earn several hundred million VND/month.

Read more Back to Topics

Back to topic

BINH KHANH

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/cong-ty-chung-khoan-giam-manh-nhan-su-tang-dau-tu-cong-nghe-20250511215532881.htm