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AKARTA: The Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) along with its regulatory counterparts introduced on Tuesday the country’s first online games about stock trading as part of a campaign to attract more individual investors to the stock market.

A stock trading game called Nabung Saham Go and a simulation game called Stocklab were introduced to youngsters by the IDX, the Financial Services Authority (OJK), the Indonesian Stock Market Clearing House (KPEI) and the Indonesian Central Securities Depository (KSEI).

The online game and the simulation will be officially launched on Aug. 27 to coincide with the 39th anniversary of the Indonesian capital market.

The Nabung Saham Go game was made by private company Winratama Perkasa, a facilitator of virtual stock trading, while the Stocklab simulation was designed by Ryan Filbert, a young Indonesian who is an expert in capital market.

IDX development director Nicky Hogan said these innovations would teach ordinary people that investment was not a complicated thing and they could learn the details through gaming.

“We hope that these games can act as the first step for people to get to know real-life investment. We hope the gamers will be investors too,” he said during the event.

Alpino Kianjaya, IDX director of trading and membership, said youngsters were expected to learn about the stock market at an early age as a path to become long term investors in the future.

The IDX is looking to increase the number of individual investors in local equities by 200,000 this year since only 1 percent of Indonesia’s population of 250 million invests in stocks. — JP