WOULDN'T it be great if you have a system to show the sustainability of a price momentum or if whether there is any foreign interest on the stock? Are the institutional investors buying or selling, and are the trades for the long or short term?
Similarly, public-listed companies (PLCs) will need to know who their investors are, their trading behaviour, who are the intermediaries and who are investing in their peers.
The answers are in DIBots, a platform that helps investors make better investment decisions as well as provides analyses on investors' behaviour.
In this day and age, information is easily accessible but you do need to know where to look and be discerning as to whether the source is reliable.
In August 2019, the DIBots (Data Intelligence Robots) platform was launched by DiBots IT Solutions Sdn Bhd in collaboration with Bursa Malaysia Bhd.
The platform is aimed at addressing the issue of a fragmented data landscape by providing cross-functional data solutions to serve the needs of the industry.
DIBots IT Solutions was co-founded by Lim Kok Eng, 56, who is also the chief executive officer of DIBots IT Solutions Sdn Bhd, and Philippe O. Piette, the founder of World Vest Base (WVB), a Chicago-based financial database provider that was established in 1985.
WVB provides a rich global intelligence database for DIBots to integrate with Bursa's datasets.
Through the DIBots platform, one can find out the investment trend in the market and insights on investor behaviour. The system goes further to help the PLCs to identify their intermediaries and knowing who their investors are.
One of its key analytical tools allows users to identify who are the beneficial owners of a company, the company structure or the relationship of entities relating to a company. The tool is being used by PLCs to identify who are their investors, especially the new investors, and on any possibility of them being a target for a takeover.
With more than 30 years of experience in various fields, Lim is grateful for his past experiences as he believes the diversity has led him to who he is today.
After graduating from the Monash University in 1991 with a bachelor degree in economics and accounting, as well as a bachelor of computing (honours), he embarked on his career path as an external auditor with one of the "Big 4" firms before moving into other capacities such as internal audit, investigation and data analytics.
He was also the chief operating officer and chief financial officer in various organisations, including regulators, financial institutions and information technology companies.
Prior to DIBots, Lim was with Bursa as the head of exchange market data (2006-2010) and with Securities Commission (2010-2019) as the general manager of its analytics department, where he was instrumental in setting up key processes to collect, discover, interpret and communicate significant patterns from raw capital market data to various stakeholders.
Lim has also shared his experiences using artificial intelligence for regulation with other regulators in Southeast Asia.
"I always like challenges and to create something as useful as that gives me a sense of achievement. I am fortunate to find my business partner, Philippe O Piette, who share the same vision and has supported me all the way to achieve this," said Lim.
DIBots was first launched for institutional investors and research houses in 2019.
In December 2020, a new module on investors relation was launched to address the needs of PLCs to have in-depth analyses of their investors.
The new module has the capability to transform a raw registry of depository data into a meaningful multi-dimensional dashboard to answer various concerns of PLCs.
"Data is expensive but we want to make it affordable to everyone. Hence, in the first quarter of this year, we target to launch MVector (Market Vector), a market analysis platform for the retail investors and a BizKYC solution for companies to understand their counterparts," he added.
The writer was a journalist with The New Straits Times before joining a Fortune Global 500 real estate company. This article is a collaboration between the New Straits Times and Tradeview, the author of 'Once Upon A Time In Bursa'.
