Press Release

FORMER stockbroker, teacher and pioneer in virtual brokerage Richard Symon has been selected to lead the small-business community of the Newcastle Stock Exchange. Fresh to his role as chief executive and managing director of NSX, Mr Symon told The Age he wanted listing on the NSX, which merged with the Bendigo Stock Exchange in April last year, to give small businesses an opportunity to join a support community — one that would educate as well as enrich. He said the financial community had a responsibility to improve financial literacy of small and medium businesses. For example, Mr Symon said, NSX runs the taxi licence market, an exchange for selling and assigning taxi licences. "The NSX is all about fostering smaller companies," Mr Symon said. "It's probably fair to say that if we develop smaller companies and hand them over to the ASX because they've grown and developed to the extent that they can satisfy the listing rules, we have (had) a significant role in growing that part of Australia." Mr Symon, with Patrick Horseley, co-founded website Online Broker, which was bought by Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd subsidiary ecorp, and merged with US giant Charles Schwab in 2000.