(Yicai Global) March 5 -- Guotai Junan Securities, one of the biggest brokerages in China, will start dealing with investors who are keen to trade securities of companies that get listed on the upcoming science and technology innovation board. 

Guotai Junan Securities will begin accepting new account reservations tonight, an insider at the Shanghai-based firm told Yicai Global. The full procedure involves a test that assesses their knowledge of trading and the related risks. 

The sci-tech innovation board aims to make it easier for technology startups to go public in Shanghai and the new market is deemed to be launched in the first half of this year. Stocks on the board are expected to pose higher risks than those on the existent two mainland bourses. This is why traders need to prove more than two years of investment experience and a daily account balance of more than CNY500,000 (USD74,600) on average.

The total number of individual investors on China's mainland who can meet the new board's requirements is about 3 million people, Shanghai's bourse estimated.

Editor: Emmi Laine