SWIFT will supply messaging services to MEFF, the central counterparty and Spanish financial futures and options exchange. The agreement was signed in Madrid today by Jos Massa, Managing Director of MEFF parent Grupo Mercados Financieros, and Francis Remacle, a Member of the Executive Comittee at SWIFT and Manager of its Securities Division.
Under the terms of the deal, both MEFF Renta Fija and MEFF Renta Variable will use the ISO 15022 standards and the SWIFT network. MEFF Renta Fija is poised to introduce a new CCP service for repos in Spanish government bonds. Grupo Mercados Financieros also includes AIAF, the fixed income exchange for private debt, and SENAF, the trading platform for Spanish government debt.
Membership of the SWIFT network will facilitate communications, and MEFF and SWIFT will also work together on defining back-office standards for the futures and options traded on exchanges. Grupo Mercados Financieros and SWIFT will also study other ways of cooperating, including the possible use of SWIFT ‘s FIX Hub to open access to trading on MEFF to new users amongst the 7,000 financial institutions around the world connected to the SWIFT network.
“We are convinced of the importance of standardisation at Grupo Mercados Financieros,” says Massa. “Moreover, the SWIFT network is an important channel in the financial community and adopting the ISO 15022 standard is a strategic decision for us, given its increasing importance in the sector for exchanging information. Adopting the path of standardisation is essential in the medium and long term and it will significantly enable the optimisation of resources amongst our members.”
“SWIFT has always been at the service of securities market infrastructures, helping them in their efforts to standardise communication platforms, offer new services and reduce costs for the whole industry,” adds Francis Remacle. “The clearing, trading and central counterparty systems, as in the case of Grupo Mercados Financieros, are important strategic entities in SWIFTNet’s service as a window of global communication.”