Dan Dascăl, CEO of BT Asset Management, attended the Investors’ Forum organized by the newspaper Bursa, where he spoke about trends in the investment fund market, interest in regular investments, and the outlook for the capital markets for the remainder of the year:

About the investment fund market:

• Last year was a very good one for the investment fund industry, and the start of this year confirms this trend. The industry has surpassed the 1.2 million mark for investors in Romanian investment funds, reflecting very strong market momentum.
  
  
• This growth was driven by several factors. First, the paradigm of fund investing has changed significantly since the pandemic. Digitalization is increasingly present in our lives, so most investments—whether in funds or stocks—are now made digitally, in a very simple and user-friendly way.
  
  
• Recurring investments have also played an important role in this development. At BT Asset Management, we have over 300,000 recurring investments every month. We thus have a very large number of investors who have realized that by consistently saving a relatively small amount over a longer period of time, they can achieve excellent results—it is even possible to accumulate a small fortune in such an investment account.
  
  
• It is also important to bear in mind that we are starting from a relatively low base, which is why the results may seem spectacular. The percentage of GDP allocated to investment funds remains low in Romania. Open-end investment funds, in which, as I mentioned, the 1.2 million investors invest, total approximately 41 billion lei. By comparison, household deposits total approximately 410 billion lei, resulting in a ratio of 10 to 1 in favor of deposits over investments.
  
  
• In Sweden, the ratio of investments to current accounts is roughly 80/20 in favor of investments. Logically, we can expect these figures to follow the same trend in Romania as well. The potential is very high, not only in investment funds, but also in stocks, pensions, and insurance. The outlook is therefore one that gives us cause for optimism.

Outlook for the rest of the year:

• I have no particular reason to be pessimistic. We are seeing, both locally and globally, that any shocks—including the recent ones—are being absorbed fairly quickly by the markets. Investor confidence in the stock market does not appear to have undergone any major changes.
  
  
• In Romania, the situation is unique: there is a steady inflow of funds from pension funds, and we at BT Asset Management are also seeing significant inflows from new investors who are beginning to familiarize themselves with this type of investment.
  
  
• Obviously, we want to offer our customers a wider range of products, and we believe that, in the medium to long term, all types of investments will become attractive.