The Bulgarian Stock Exchange will begin trading on Deutsche Boerse’s electronic trading system Xetra in mid-2008.
Deutsche Boerse will also assume technological market control of the Sofia Stock Exchange. The agreement, which has a five-year term, provides that Deutsche Boerse organize trading of approximately 500 securities for 81 Bulgarian participants.
The trading system is currently being set up at the exchange, with commencement of trading on Xetra planned for the middle of 2008. The host computers for the operation are located in Frankfurt-Hausen.
The Bulgarian Stock Exchange’s decision means that the main technical requirements are in place so that the Xetra trading participants already connected can directly access the Bulgarian market. In turn, the 81 new participants will have the opportunity to trade the more than 17,000 instruments listed on Xetra.
Deutsche Boerse has been using Xetra to operate the trading platform for the Vienna Stock Exchange since November 1999, and has been doing the same for the Irish Stock Exchange (ISE) in Dublin since June 2000. Furthermore, trading on Eurex Bonds and Eurex Repo, as well as electricity trading on the European Energy Exchange (EEX) in Leipzig runs entirely through Deutsche Boerse technology. The Shanghai Stock Exchange, which operates China’s largest equity market, will be using Xetra technology as the core element of its new trading platform in the future.