OMX says the Helsinki, Tallinn and Riga stock exchanges – all of them members of the NOREX alliance of Scandinavian and Baltic exchanges – will adopt a common Nordic cash trading platform: its SAXESS trading system, already used by the OMX-owned Stockholm Stock Exchange.
OMX says cash market integration will generate benefits for members, enhance liquidity and promote trading in Finnish and Baltic equities. “As a result of the integration, exchange members and investors will gain easy access to Finnish, Swedish and Baltic securities through one access point to the common trading system, and will also benefit from harmonized rules,” says an OMX spokesman.
The harmonization of cash markets is in line with the creation of one Nordic Baltic market and includes benefits such as harmonized trading hours for the Helsinki and Stockholm stock exchanges (09:00-17:30 CET); harmonized trading day structure through the introduction of a closing call at the Helsinki, Tallinn and Riga stock exchanges; implementation of the NOREX Member Rules at the Helsinki Stock Exchange and the harmonization of the Tallinn and Riga rulebooks with NOREX Member Rules; introduction of a Joint Baltic Market with jointly marketed securities, harmonized listing rules between the Riga and Tallinn stock exchanges and a cross-border delivery-versus-payment link between the Estonian and Latvian CSDs; and use of BALTIX, the new pan-Baltic index, and RIGSE and VILSE, new capitalization-based total return indexes in Latvia and Lithuania.
Through a wider Nordic cooperation – the NOREX alliance – securities from seven exchanges can now be traded on the same platform with harmonized rules. The NOREX alliance is made up of the exchanges in Stockholm, Helsinki, Tallinn, Riga, Copenhagen, Oslo and Iceland.
In conjunction with the launch of the SAXESS trading system in Helsinki, the trading hours of the equity and derivatives markets at the Stockholm and Helsinki stock exchanges will be harmonized. The structure of the equity trading day will also be harmonized through the introduction of a closing call at the Helsinki, Tallinn and Riga stock exchanges. Due to decreased demand, the evening trading session at the Helsinki Stock Exchange will be discontinued.
The new SAXESS platform will be implemented from 27 September 2004 in Helsinki, Tallinn and Riga. The Vilnius Stock Exchange is expected to adopt SAXESS in 2005.