July 27 (SeeNews) - The Albanian Securities Exchange (ALSE), the first private securities exchange in the country, where only government securities have been traded so far, hopes to see its first corporate bond listing by the end of the year, its executive director Artan Gjergji told SeeNews in a recent interview.
ALSE has made some changes in its rules to allow for trade in securities offered via private placement, hoping to offer this opportunity to issuers in September or October, pending approval from the financial regulator, Gjergji told SeeNews at an event last week marking the launch of an online platform for the publication of data on a daily basis by all local asset management companies.
“We see the new platform as a first step towards attracting more investors, building up trust, raising awareness and offering more transparency,” Gjergji said.
“Hopefully in the autumn the full architecture covering the post-trade services for the domestic securities market will be in place,” he added.
ALSE was licensed in July 2017 as the first private securities exchange in the country. Since the start of operations in February 2018, however, only government securities have been traded on the exchange, as the reason for this, in Gjergji's words, is the lack of infrastructure.
“Despite the existence of AFISaR, the government debt securities depository operated by the central bank, we were missing a central depository for business securities. Now, this central depository called the Albanian Securities Register (ALREG) is already licensed by both the financial regulator and by the central bank as securities settlement system. Currently, ALREG is interfacing the system with the central bank’s RTGS system," Gjergji said. "Once they set up the interface systems, we will be technically ready.”
Gjergji also said that the financial regulator is working with the finance ministry to identify state-owned companies with a good balance sheet that meet the criteria to be listed in the stock exchange market.
For its part, ALSE has identified a few large local companies which it is trying to attract.
ALSE was founded by Tirana-headquartered Credins Bank and American Bank of Investment (ABI Bank) with 45.59% shareholding interest each and AK Invest, one of the biggest non-banking financial institutions in Albania, with 8.82%. Credins Bank and ABI Bank hold 15.3% and 5.1% of total assets of Albania's banking system, respectively.
Regional cooperation features high on ALSE's agenda.
Once it is fully operational, ALSE is open to any kind of international market operation including being part of a regional securities trading platform such as SEE Link launched by the stock exchanges of Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Croatia and supported by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Gjergji said.
ALSE is part of the Regional Cooperation Council, a World Bank supported project which is trying to push for the development of the capital market and financial inclusion in the Western Balkans countries.
Additionally, last year, ALSE signed an real-time data sharing agreement with the Vienna Stock Exchange. Under the terms of this agreement, institutional investors in more than 88 countries will access ALSE's end-of-day trading data.
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