Singapore firm picked to build Asean trade link

Stock exchange operators in Southeast Asia have picked a Singaporean technology company to create electronic links between the region’s equity markets—a step closer to the goal of enabling cross-border trades to increase investment activities in the region.

The first four Asean [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] trading link participants are Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, through the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE).

The PSE and its foreign partners chose SunGard Global Trading Pte Ltd, a Singapore-based firm, as the network infrastructure and software provider for the planned linkup to start by the first quarter of 2012.

“The Asean trading link aims to electronically interconnect the participating markets and facilitate cross-border order trading,” the PSE said in a disclosure on its website.

The agreement with SunGard was signed last Tuesday, PSE said.

All other equity markets in the Asean are expected to join the trading link by 2013 and 2014. This is in line with a plan to transform the fragmented region into united economic unit.

The plan also involves easing trade restrictions and the granting of air rights to facilitate the faster movement of goods and services among the region’s 10 members.

“The Asean trading link will facilitate global trades especially for retail investors seeking a bigger exposure in the fast-growing Asean market,” PSE president and CEO Hans Sicat said in a statement.

The PSE earlier migrated to NYSE Technologies’ NSC V900 trading platform, which boosts the product range, trading performance and volume capacity of the local bourse. This has been rebranded as the PSEtrade system.

Although the new system drew flak from trading participants at first, the exchange has said it is now in a better position to boost stock trading liquidity, introduce new products, and hook up with other neighboring exchanges as part of the planned cross-border trading within the region.—Paolo G. Montecillo