BRAND CONNECT
November 17, 2025 / 19:46 IST
Many investors open their apps, search for a company, and expect to be able to buy a piece of it instantly. Instead, they often encounter a screen that says “Watch only,” with no “buy” button. This small but recurring disappointment is characteristic of the contemporary investing experience. Despite the widespread discussion of “global access” and “borderless portfolios,” most investors remain restricted to a limited portion of the global market.
The Missing Majority
According to the World Federation of Exchanges, there are more than 50,000 listed companies across 78 stock exchanges. However, the typical investing platform provides access to fewer than 5,000—which is under 10 percent of the global market. This means the vast majority of companies are effectively “invisible” to retail investors, even if their logos appear in the app’s discovery features.
The Architecture of Illusion
Investing apps are often deliberately designed to appear comprehensive. They highlight popular tickers and trending brands, giving users the feeling of being connected to the global economy even when most of it is off-limits. Many of these visible tickers are “ghost listings”—symbols displayed under “Discover” or “Research” that cannot actually be traded. This serves as a psychological tactic, often unintentional but nonetheless effective, where users believe the world is accessible because they can see it. Yet, visibility does not equate to ownership.
The Industry’s Plumbing Problem
The root causes of this limitation are systemic within the industry. Most platforms are licensed in only a few jurisdictions, which legally restricts them from allowing investors to buy shares from every market. The regulatory hurdles are substantial: compliance across different countries’ rules regarding KYC, taxation, and settlement is a slow, complex, and costly process. While these processes are crucial for accountability, they make cross-border investing far more complex than the “one-click access” often promised by apps.
The industry’s common solution has been cosmetic: to present a global appearance while limiting actual trading to jurisdictions where it is easiest, such as the U.S., the U.K., and certain developed Asian exchanges. This exclusion keeps regions experiencing rapid growth and innovation, such as Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, outside the reach of the retail investor. Furthermore, geographical restrictions can prevent a user in one country from owning shares in another without any explanation. Entire exchanges are restricted to non-residents, a fact rarely stated by platforms upfront.
In its 2023 review, the UK Financial Conduct Authority warned that this kind of presentation risks misleading investors by making unavailable products appear accessible.
The Need for Transparency
The core issue isn’t technological; it’s a lack of transparency. For investors, this lack of clarity affects trust more than the restricted markets themselves. When a stock shows up in a search result, the user naturally assumes they can purchase it, and a breach of this assumption erodes confidence.
Simply disclosing which exchanges are live, what is restricted, and the reasons why would restore honesty without requiring the addition of a single new feature.
Tajinder Virk, Co-Founder and Group CEO of Finvasia, states that investing should be about genuine access, not merely aspiration. He draws a comparison to travel: “The first time you travel abroad, you realize how much of the world you’d only read about. Investing works the same way—until you’ve truly invested across markets, you don’t know what global really looks like”. He argues that dealing should be access, not “theatre,” and that “Real global investing isn’t about owning what everyone already owns—it’s about discovering the companies the world hasn’t priced yet, the ones shaping the future from places most investors never look”.
Until investing platforms align their promises with what users can actually own, global investing will remain an illusion—an experience that seems limitless but is ultimately confined. The next evolution of platforms must not just showcase the world but genuinely open it up to investors.
Moneycontrol Journalists are not involved in creation of this article.