The Baiduri Capital Investment Challenge (BCIC) 2021 officially commenced last Friday as Baiduri Capital hosted a briefing for the participants held at Baiduri Bank’s Headquarters.

The Baiduri Capital Investment Challenge is an annual initiative undertaken by Baiduri Capital as part of its efforts to cultivate and raise awareness on investments, capital markets services and securities trading as well as support AMBD’s goal of increasing investment literacy among the general public.

In the BCIC, each team is given BND5,000 as initial capital to invest into any of the securities listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX), Malaysia Stock Exchange (BURSA), Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEx), China A-Shares (SSE-A) or the US stock Exchange (NYSE MKT LLC, NYSE and NASDAQ). Any profits earned by the teams in the Investment Challenge will be retained by them.

What sets this year’s challenge apart from previous iterations is that this year, the 40 participants comprise alumni of local and international higher learning institutions – a first in the four years the BCIC has been running. The teams comprise alumni from Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD), Universiti Teknologi Brunei (UTB), Politeknik Brunei (PB), Universiti Islam Sultan Sharif Ali (UNISSA), Laksamana College of Business (LCB) as well as alumni from the University of Bath and University of Birmingham. This makes the BCIC more accessible, while encouraging a more diverse mix of participants with varying levels of investment experience.

During the session, teams were briefed about the format of the Challenge and each of them were introduced to their mentors from Baiduri Capital before they began their investment journeys.

Siti Nur Syahmina binti Haji Zaini, the team leader for ‘Stonks’, is a graduate of the University of Birmingham and hopes that the Challenge will offer many learning opportunities for her team, so that they will be able to make better-informed decisions when it comes to trading and investing.
She said: “My teammates and I have our own personal experiences with investing, but we lack the necessary information and resource to learn about things such as risk assessments, which is important to make an investment strategy.”

Meanwhile, Muhammad Hasif bin Haji Awang Nordin, the team leader for ‘OneStock Co.’ and a graduate from UBD, aims to take the opportunity to learn as much as possible about investing from his mentors, and also aspires to become an investor himself.

He said: “My team-mates and I have all recently graduated and have managed to find jobs, so our plan in the Challenge is to take full advantage of the mentoring and learning aspects so that after this, we can also invest on our own and grow our wealth.”

Throughout the six months of their investment journeys, teams will be taught the importance of learning how to invest, with the aim of breaking the misconception that investing is complicated, time-consuming and inaccessible. Teams will also have direct access to licensed dealers who act as their mentors in guiding them on trading and investing.

Peng Eng Soon, General Manager of Baiduri Capital said, “The aim of the Baiduri Capital Investment Challenge is to cultivate awareness and generate interest in financial investments and capital markets.”

“This is the fourth year of the Challenge, and it is encouraging to see that this time we have graduates from local and international higher learning institutions, who already have some personal experience with investing. I hope that the teams this year will gain new insights and experience into the world of investing through their journey with the Baiduri Capital Investment Challenge”.

Established in 2015, Baiduri Capital is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Baiduri Bank, specializing in securities trading and investment products. Through its secure web-based online securities trading portal, the first in the country, customers can trade in SGX (Singapore), HKEx (Hong Kong), China A-Share, Bursa Malaysia, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), NASDAQ Stock Market as well as the NYSE MKT LLC (AMEX). On top of securities trading, Baiduri Capital also offers Unit Trusts, ETFs, Bonds and Investment Linked Life Insurance plans.