January 20 (SeeNews) - The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) on Friday invited consultancy firms to propose a solution for the integration of the post trade infrastructure of South Eastern Europe Link (SEE Link) - a platform for trading of securities listed on equity markets in the region - by linking the local central securities depositories.
The current project is expected to achieve operational efficiencies and cost savings, ultimately leading to an increased attractiveness of the SEE Link markets and increased trading volumes, the EBRD said in a statement.
A direct link between the post-trade institutions in the SEE Link countries is seen as the major benefit for the further development of the SEE Link markets, the lender also said. It added that currently specific clearing and settlement solutions vary from country to country and are impeding the platforms development.
"In the optimum case only one interface to the settlement environment would be needed to access the local capital markets in the whole SEE Region. This would provide remote members with an efficient and easy access, enabling them to trade, clear and settle even on smaller exchanges with an acceptable level of risk," it noted.
The deadline for the submission of bids is February 9. The assignment is expected to start in March and to have a duration of seven months.
The SEE Link helps to integrate domestic stock markets with a combined equity market capitalization of $30 billion (28.2 billion euro). It allows for order routing of almost 400 stocks listed on the three founding exchanges
The Bulgarian, Macedonian and Croatian stock exchanges set up SEE Link as a joint company based in Skopje in May 2014. The three participating bourses holding equal interest in SEE Link have contributed 80,000 euro in capital.
In December 2016, Serbia and Slovenia joined the SEE Link platform.
While initially focusing on bringing more exchanges to the SEE Link, the EBRD explained that the platform is now in the phase of connecting more brokers, and increasing the number of trades. "The integration of the trade environment is almost completed and linking the post-trade environment in the SEE Link countries is one of the logical next steps to improve market liquidity," it noted.
The EBRD supported the initial phase of the SEE Link project with a 540,000 euro grant to introduce an electronic system for order-routing in July 2014. Funding for the project was provided by EBRD donors through the EBRD Shareholder Special Fund.
($=0.9401 euro)