Recently the Budapest Stock Exchange (BSE) shared some updates in relation to their ongoing projects and future developments.
The categories currently applied by the BSE in the equity section will be redesigned. Category “A” will be renamed to category “Premium” and category “B” shall change to “Standard”. In addition category “T” will come into effect as the one year grace period granted for technically listed securities expires in September 2013. The new category “T” was created back in September 2012 based on increasing demand by market players for better structured and more transparent market segmentation at the BSE. Some companies currently being in category “B” may be moved to category “T” if they do not carry out a public offering by September.
Further to the launch of BÉTa MTF market for Western European equities back in 2011 the BSE is now considering the establishment of another MTF for small- and medium sized companies to facilitate listing and encourage the access to capital through the exchange. BSE hopes to get governmental support for the project.
The BSE is targeting 6 December 2013 for the adoption of the XETRA trading platform. Only the spot market will shift to XETRA, the derivative section will continue to operate on MMTS. Despite previous plans, The BSE will not introduce a market-maker system at the same time as the XETRA launch following market participants´ request not to implement the two projects at the same time. The BSE intends to allow sufficient preparation time and will provide notice 6 month in advance to all trading members in due course. Both the BSE and KELER group will give trading and clearing members opportunities to participate in XETRA testing. The testing period has started already at the beginning of June for traders and will end 4 December. The last 3 weeks period will be a rehearsal in the live environment. It shall be noted that due to the change in XETRA versions during the implementation period testing and go live will happen with version 14 from September on.
Furthermore the BSE is looking for new business opportunities. One project is engaged in analysing the opportunities to list state owned companies on the exchange. We will keep you informed.
Impact on investors:
The BSE expects increased market turnover, more favourable pricing and new trading members once the above projects have been implemented. It is expected that some of the OTC volumes may be shifted to the regulated markets, too.