Mexican Stock Exchange Works to Educate the Public

Among the many impacts from the great disruption caused by Covid has been the greater acceptance of the need for financial information aimed at helping people save, invest, and generate wealth in the future.

The Mexican Stock Exchange, from the moment of its creation, has had as one of its most relevant objectives the creation and evolution of the stock market. But for this to be achieved, it must provide the public with information so that together with issuers the stock market can grow. The information also needs to be helpful for other participants who may use the various services of the companies that make the stock and derivatives markets possible in Mexico.

The ways people learn are diverse. The accumulation of knowledge, skills and attitudes regarding a specific subject does not have a single way to be acquired since it depends on many things that are unique to each individual.

In recent years, therefore, the Mexican Stock Exchange has developed an educational communication strategy that has the clear intention of empowering society without favoring any one form of learning. This diverse ecosystem of education that has developed includes:

• The School of the Mexican Stock Exchange with both face-to-face and virtual training courses.
• The Museum of the Mexican Stock Exchange.
• Financial contests starting with the simplest skills and advancing to the most complex financial ones.
• Cultural and artistic promotion activities.
• The official blog of the Mexican Stock Exchange: Let's talk about the Stock Market
• Mexican Stock Market, the Podcast
• BolsAPP
• Frequent conferences, both face-to-face and virtual: Stock Market Thursday.
• The webinars of the School of the Stock Market with strategic partners, both national and foreign.
• Daily messages through the main social networks.

The power of social networks has a very relevant importance to education, since it is immediate and easy to understand when it is used for short messages from the people who know about the subject to recipients who have the option of reviewing the information when it is most convenient to them. Also digital memory is unlimited, which is good because the basic concepts do not change over time.

By sharing information among groups with similar interests, interesting and deep conversations are created that can answer questions from the simplest to the complex. There is a increased level of active learning that is seen today among young people everywhere in the world.

However, there are also clear risks, such as the lack of privacy and the use of erroneous, inappropriate or even fraudulent content. That is why the messages from true institutions such as the BMV, with its experts who know the established norms and methods, will always be essential to promote the formal development of the stock market.

It is important to note that to date:

• According to figures from the Mexican Association of Stock Market Institutions (AMIB), as of the first quarter of 2023 there were 5,459,061 direct accounts with the Brokerage Houses. In 2019 (before the pandemic) the figure was about 299,197 accounts. That is an increase of 5.15 million accounts, or a percentage growth of 1,700%.
• As of June 2023, there are 73,430,271 accounts that have a contracted AFORE and that indirectly invest in financial instruments that are traded on a Stock Market.
• According to the 2021 financial inclusion survey, 49.1% of the population in Mexico has some formal savings product in the country.

The previous figures could cause financial institutions to relax, but the there is still a gap between where things stand today and the encouraging potential that can be reached.

To say that these achievements have been the sole results of the School of the Mexican Stock Exchange would be incorrect. But it is fair to say the exchange has frequently helped people who have a genuine interest in seeking answers regarding investing. They will continue to find the necessary information from the BMV that will enable them to increase the culture of savings and productive investment in the country.