Global brokerages chase Indonesia’s retail investor boom as regulators clean up stock market

Among the prominent foreign names that are making, or have made, moves to expand their footprint to Indonesia’s capital markets over the last two years are major US online brokerage Robinhood Markets, South Korea’s Hanwha Investment & Securities and Singapore-headquartered Doo Financial. Read more at straitstimes.com.

JAKARTA – Indonesia’s stock market is drawing global brokerages eager to tap a fast-growing army of young retail investors. But this rapid expansion is also exposing manipulation and transparency gaps, prompting regulators to launch an aggressive clean-up of South-east Asia’s largest equity market.

Among the prominent foreign names that are making, or have made, moves to expand their footprint to Indonesia’s capital markets over the last two years are major US online brokerage Robinhood Markets, South Korea’s Hanwha Investment & Securities and Singapore-headquartered Doo Financial.

This comes as the number of retail investors in Indonesia jumped from just 3.9 million in 2020 over the past five years to more than 20 million currently. Indonesia has the largest number of such investors in ASEAN, with over half of them under 30.

For global brokerages, the benefits to be reaped from rapid investor growth far outweigh having to navigate a stock market that has witnessed occasional price manipulation and is now undergoing intense regulatory turbulence.

Indonesia’s stock market is currently in the midst of a sweeping overhaul following a US$80 billion (S$102 billion) market rout in late January 2026.

This crisis was triggered by MSCI, which flagged severe transparency issues, including opaque ownership and “coordinated trading behaviour”. The global investment research firm had raised concerns about the investability of Indonesian stocks and warned of a potential downgrade of the country to “frontier market” status. Financial markets were assuaged only after the authorities pledged its commitment to reforms.