The Croatian Financial Services Supervisory Agency (HANFA) approved the new Rules of the Zagreb Stock Exchange (ZSE) on Friday, 6 September 2013. The overview of the most important amendments to the ZSE Rules is as follows:
Membership
- Membership via remote access
- Membership with limited trading rights for professional investors other than investment companies or credit institutions
- More focus on technical conditions and safety (data connection and access mode to trading system).
Settlement of transactions concluded on the stock exchange:
- Directly – through the membership in the clearing/settlement system
- Indirectly – through the agreement with the member of the clearing/settlement system that provides the settlement of transactions concluded on the stock exchange for the account of the ZSE member.
Specialist/Market makers:
- Distinction between the Specialist and the Market Maker based on the type of the security for which liquidity management is carried out: specialist is in charge for equities; market maker for structured products.
Structure of the ZSE markets (Article 147):
- The structure of the MTP is changed completely introducing three new segments (MTP-Alter, MTP-Fortis and MTP-X) each with different conditions for admission to trading and after-admission obligations.
Conditions for admission to regulated market:
- Free float is defined in accordance with Commission Regulation (No. 1287/2006) in a way that all equities held by undertaking for collective investment or pension fund are considered as free float
- Condition for financial instrument to be listed to regulated market without the Issuer’s approval is that such instruments have already been listed to the other regulated market in Croatia, other member state or stock exchange of the third country
- Transition of equities from the higher segment to the lower one is possible if the Issuer does not comply with conditions for admission to trading and after-admission obligations in two consecutive periodical inspections; ZSE can classify security to the lower segment of the regulated market or even decide to terminate the listing.
Trading suspension in case of extraordinary market volatility
- If the value of CROBEX index declines by 10% or more compared to the last value of the previous trading day, trading will be suspended for 1 hour, if the trading is suspended prior to 13:00 CET, or for 30 minutes, if the trading is suspended at or after 13:00 CET
- If CROBEX repeatedly drops in value by 15% or more, trading is suspended until the end of the trading day.
In line with the Article 218, the longest period of validity of the offer in the trading system is 365 days from the entry of the offer to the trading system regardless if the offer has been changed or partially executed meanwhile.
New ZSE Rules will come into force on 16 September 2013, except for the provisions of the Article 147, point 3 coming into force one month after and the Article 218, paragraph 1, which will come into force one year after the ZSE Rules coming into force.
On the day of new ZSE Rules coming into force, ZSE will adopt new Decision on trading hours of the ZSE which will introduce the following:
Opening from 9:00 CET till 9:15 CET + variable ending (up to 5 minutes)
Continuous trading from the end of the Opening till 16:30 CET
OTC transactions reporting from 8:30 CET till 16:30 CET
New trading hours of the Zagreb Stock Exchange will become effective as of Wednesday, 16 October 2013.
Impact on investors: New ZSE Rules will become effective as of 16 September 2013.