Spanish bourse announces Swiss securities
Bolsa Y Mercados Espanoles (BME), Spain’s securities exchange, has made the custody and settlement of Swiss securities available to its clients.
The move represents a new step forward in the integration of BME into SIX, the third-largest financial markets operator in Europe, which acquired the Spanish bourse in 2020.
The connection between the Spanish and Swiss CSDs will reduce costs and times for Spanish BME CSD, Iberclear, and as a result, institutions can benefit from reduced costs and processes, as the chain of custody is simplified.
Boosting the Spanish and Swiss financial ecosystems
Iberclear participants will be able to register and settle securities in the Swiss market, which will act as a single point of access to Target2-Securities (T2S), the pan-European securities settlement platform.
Jesús Benito, Head of Domestic Custody & TR Operations, SIX, commented: “With the addition of Swiss securities to BME’s cross-border custody and settlement service, financial institutions will have a new tool for improved management of securities post-trade services. In this way, we achieve the objective of boosting the Spanish and Swiss financial ecosystems, one of the main goals of the integration, as we broaden the range of services available to our clients.”
Furthermore, through SIX, Spanish clients can access the 50 plus countries to which the Swiss custodian currently has access. In this way, SIX offers access to a wide range of countries worldwide for the international settlement and custody of its securities.
Full migration to complete in Q4 2022 – Q2 2023
In 2021, SIX announced its plans to migrate the Spanish exchange platform, envisaged to happen between Q4 2022 and Q2 2023. The move will create the foundation for the Spanish along with the Swiss market to be established on one of the leading platforms in Europe.
The Spanish market will continue to be hosted in Madrid and the Swiss market will continue to be hosted in Zurich as well as local regulatory oversight for both markets.
In a first step, trading and trading-related services for Equities, Equity-like and Fixed Income instruments will be harmonized on the SIX trading platform by extending and optimizing the current SIX capabilities to also address the Spanish market’s needs.
Along the same lines, market data dissemination will be harmonized for both markets. The scope of the trading platform harmonization process does not include derivative instruments.
This migration ensures that the market gets to benefit from an enhanced trading platform, extended capabilities, new functionalities as well as simplified and improved systems and technology.
