Nasdaq OMX, the transatlantic exchange group, has confirmed a move to appoint Fortis to handle clearing for a new European trading system set to launch in September this year, as first reported by Financial News two weeks ago.
The development gives the exchange a key step forward in its bid to challenge Europe’s dominant stock exchanges.
The exchange, formed at the end of February after the $4.4 billion (€3 billion) acquisition of the Nordic group by the US exchange, has picked European Multilateral Clearing Facility, a subsidiary of Fortis, to support its Pan European Market.
The selection is the second appointment by Nasdaq OMX in less than a week after it confirmed on Wednesday that Charlotte Crosswell, the former head of Nasdaq International, had rejoined the exchange to head up the new system from the Pension Corporation, where she started in July last year.
The exchange is racing to go live in September, having only announced its plan to launch the trading platform two months ago.
Chris Concannon, the executive vice president of transaction services at Nasdaq OMX, says: “Our relationship with EMCF is an important step in our plan to leverage the growth opportunities before us in this post-Mifid environment. It will enable us to offer not only faster and better executions, but a highly reliable, seamless post-trade experience.”
Fortis is the clearer for Chi-X, an alternative trading system from Nomura-owned agency broker Instinet that has attracted more than 10% of trading in some London Stock Exchange listed companies since its launch a year ago.
Chi-X is the first system to have gone live to take advantage of the Mifid set of European trading rule reforms that took effect on 1 November.
However, others, including the Nasdaq system, which will trade 300 of the most actively traded European names, and Turquoise, the system backed by nine investment banks, are set to go live this year.