SARAJEVO (Bosnia and Herzegovina), June 22 (SeeNews) – SEE Link, the joint trading platform of seven stock exchanges in Southeast Europe , has signed a memorandum of understanding with Raiffeisen Bank International to deploy the lender's innovative solution for settling cross-border trades, Bosnia's Banja Luka Stock Exchange said on Friday.
RBI's Group Securities Services Operations Center will act as post-trade infrastructure for trading on SEE Link, the Banja Luka bourse, a member of the trading platform, said in a statement.
RBI, as one of the leading custodian banks in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), has already linked up with 10 Central Securities Depositaries (CSD) in 10 countries of the region to provide its clients with easy access to those markets.
Its unique solution, the Banja Luka bourse explained, will enable SEE Link to overcome settlement and asset servicing challenges caused by different currencies and legislations across participating countries.
"RBI is highly interested to see growing activity on the stock exchanges in Southeastern Europe and therefore welcomed the creation of SEE Link in 2014. We are delighted to provide the platform with our settlement and asset servicing solution," Attila Szalay-Berzeviczy, Head of RBI Group Securities Services, said.
"Members of participating stock exchanges will in the future be able to trade and settle trades executed on SEE Link. Furthermore, our international clients will gain easy excess to those markets through our GSS Operations Center," he added.
SEE Link is supported by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) by way of a grant to establish an electronic system for order-routing.
"Intensified efforts are needed to drive regional cooperation, consolidation and to harmonize the capital markets in the region. Inroads in some of these matters have been made by EBRD, such as supporting the implementation of SEE Link as a cross-border trading link", Hannes Takacs, head of ECM and CMI Development at EBRD, said on the occasion of the signing of the MoU.
He noted that linking regional exchanges in the form of order-routing is an initial step for the regional integration of securities markets.
"We see the initiative set by the SEE Link member exchanges and RBI as an important step to improve cross-border post-trade services and for enhanced regional cooperation", Takacs concluded.
SEE Link is a project started by Bulgarian, Macedonian and Zagreb stock exchanges with the objective of creating a regional infrastructure for trading of securities listed on those markets.