Following the approval of their applications to the Qatar Financial Markets Authority (QFMA), the exchange regulator in Qatar, HSBC, Qatar National Bank and Standard Chartered will be providing custody services at Qatar Exchange (QE) effective this month upon completion of their respective technical on-boarding processes.
All three providers have already entered into a depositary agreement with QE that also provides for their participation in the daily cash-settlement of trades. The initial authorization will remain valid for as long as the firms meet QFMAs ongoing regulatory requirements. While HSBC is currently providing custody services related to the handling of securities, under the new agreement, all three custodians will be able to handle the monetary side of the transactions for their customers as well.
This milestone is seen as a crucial step towards the delivery-versus-payment (DvP) mechanism that the exchange aims at implementing before the end of this quarter.
This is excellent news for the Qatari marketplace and our growing number of international customers as having three leading financial institutions such as HSBC, QNB and SC offer custody services at QE will dramatically enhance our post-trade processing services while increasing the confidence of international investors that Qatar is a safe and efficient marketplace, says QE CEO Andre Went.