The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) is putting on hold its plan to allow brokers to remain anonymous during trading while it tries to find a way to allow this while still remain transparent.

In an interview at the sidelines of the OECD Asian Roundtable on Corporate Governance, PSE president Francis Lim said the broker anonymity rule will not be implemented until the new trading system is in place and conflicts have been reconciled.

The broker anonymity rule will prevent investors from knowing which broker is buying up or selling down a stock even during periods of wild swings in prices.

Currently, brokers are identified by numeric codes which allows anyone with access to the trading system to see which broker is the buyer or seller of any stock—making trading more transparent.

“We are trying to find a way to allow those who want to remain anonymous while maintaining transparency,” said  Lim without explaining how the PSE plans to arrive at a compromise for the two apparently conflicting policies. Lim said they will also have to wait to see how they can apply this rule once the PSE starts using its new automated trading system. The use of the new system has been moved from October 2 this year to between December 4 and the third Friday of January 2010.

The PSE continues to remove kinks from its new automated trading system since there has been some delay because the system is being customized to make it more responsive to local conditions.

He noted that the PSE board wanted the new system to be fully operational before it replaces the current Maktrade system which is already more than 15 years old.

Meanwhile, Lim said the delay in the launch of the new system will also affect the timetable for plans to conduct trading activities in the afternoon.