Why are Romanians buying stock on Vienna bourse?

Several domestic brokerages have in recent years applied for Vienna bourse membership, as Romanians are ever more interested in Austrian companies, many of which have significant operations in Romania.

Romanians’ investments on the Vienna bourse tend to turn into a trend, and their value is likely to reach several tens of million euros this year, in line with data provided by brokerages handling such deals.

Last year, BT Securities, the brokerage of Banca Transilvania, handled 12m euros for its clients on the Austrian market. Broker Cluj and IFB Finwest are another two domestic brokerages that became members of the Vienna bourse, while Tradeville, one of the largest brokerages on the online segment, has had a platform destined to the Austrian market for several years.

“At present, we have around 15 accounts trading on Vienna, but their values are highly different. Generally, there are speculative investors, not betting on the long term. Austrian stocks are sufficiently volatile to attract speculators and sufficiently liquid to allow deals of several hundred thousand euros per day,” says Rareș Nilaș, general manager of BT Securities.