Philippine stock broker COL Financial moves to go beyond stockbroking through partnerships with BPI and Sun Life.

Bank of the Philippine Islands Asset Management and Trust Group, a subsidiary of Bank of the Philippine Islands, has signed a memorandum of agreement with Philippines-based online stock brokerage firm COL Financial Group to make its unit investment trust funds available online. 

The partnership allows Filipinos and investors to invest in UITFs and mutual funds from anywhere through the COL Financial platform.

COL has over 70,000 customers and records some $1 billion in client assets. In 2012, the company held 59 per cent of all online investors and 77 per cent of all value traded online. Its Philippine operations account for 94.2 per cent of revenues, while the rest are attributed to clients in Hong Kong. 

The agreement coincides with COL Financial's efforts to go beyond stockbroking. In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, the firm announced that it signed a deal with Sun Life Asset Management to allow its clients to invest in certain funds under the latter. This is still subject to the acquisition of a mutual fund distributor licence from the SEC.