Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE), the largest exchange in Central and Eastern Europe, and Euronext, the first pan-European exchange, have today signed a cross-membership and cross-access agreement in Warsaw, Poland for their cash and derivatives markets.
The agreement will allow WSE members to have access to Euronext products while Euronext members will have access to WSE products. The interconnection of the cash trading platforms will be implemented this year, and will be eased by the fact that WSE already uses a technology based on the Euronext NSC cash single trading system. The technical links for the derivatives trading platforms will be operational in 2004. These steps will allow Warsaw members to trade Euronext and WSE products from a single screen and vice versa.
This industrial agreement, does exclude ownership arrangements, but enhances the links between WSE and Euronext. It is the result of a long and fruitful relationship between WSE and the Paris exchange in the early 1990s. In 1992 the Paris exchange accompanied WSE in the computerisation of its trading which switched onto the NSC trading system, and contributed in 1993 to the computerisation of the Polish depository with the co-operation of former SICOVAM (now Euroclear France) which both still maintain close relationships.
Wieslaw Rozlucki, President & Chief Executive Officer of the WSE said: “By signing this agreement we hope to bring Polish market closer to foreign investors and extend the range of products and services offered to our clients”.
Jean-Franois Thodore, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Euronext N.V. said: “I am very pleased and honoured to sign this cross-membership and cross-access agreement with WSE. This new industrial step with the Polish exchange, which formerly acquired our NSC trading engine illustrates the flexibility and the openness of the Euronext market model and offers our customers a new investment landscape. “
Warsaw Stock Exchange, created in April 1991, is an electronic regulated market. 231 companies are listed on the Warsaw Exchange with a market capitalisation of Euro 33 billion. WSE counts 28 members and is the largest exchange in Central and Eastern Europe. In terms of index futures contracts volumes, Warsaw Exchange is the seventh largest market in Europe.
Euronext N.V. is the first pan-European exchange created in September 2000 by the merger of the Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris exchanges. As of 28 December 2001, 1,539 companies were listed on Euronext regulated markets representing a market capitalisation of Euro 2,071 billion. From January to December 2001 a total of 399 million futures and options contracts were traded on Euronext markets. Since the beginning of 2002 LIFFE has entered into the Euronext Group, and the Portuguese market BVLP merged into Euronext.