Månad: maj 2009

Any news for this week?
Olof: Today we launched trading in five Norwegian shares, StatoilHydro, Yara, REC, Seadrill and Telenor.

Were there any trades?
Olof: Trading took off almost immediately and we saw action mainly in StatoilHydro which is the most frequently traded stock in Oslo.

What are the differences and similarities compared to the launches in Sweden and Denmark?
Olof: This third launch is a bit different since the Oslo community preferred to start with a some of the most traded shares, as opposed to Sweden and Denmark. We also see similar technical challenges with clients in the early stages of adopting new technology with Smart Order Routing, enabling them to offer clients the increased liquidity by  sourcing from multiple venues.

It has been really low trading volumes, are you worried?
Olof: No, it has been as I anticipated before we started, even more some days. I expect trading volumes to progress in June when trading participants have had a change to fine-tune their applications and ensure that the whole STP chain works as planned!

What has happened today?
Olof: Today we started to trade five Danish listed equities; Coloplats, FL Smidth, NKT, Nordea and SAS. 

Ok, you are offering some new equities, but are there any participants active at all?
Olof: We have a primary group of trading participants who are able to trade and we have expected very limited volumes.

How were the volumes in the Danish equities today and what do you expect going forward?
Olof: The trading today was in line with the Swedish launch last week and our strategy with the soft launch. The plan for these weeks and until mid June is mainly initial testing and integration work at our participants’ end, in order to ensure that everything works as expected.

What else will happen during May?
Olof: Following the initial test period, we are offering Norweigan shares from next Friday, 22 May, and Finnish shares from 29 May and we are looking at adding more blue-chips stocks.

The first day of trading for Burgundy has almost passed – how did you do?
Olof: Actually, better than I anticipated. Going to multi-venue trading is new to most players in the Nordics, so technology and change of behavior is crucial here. We did a couple of hundred trades on the platform and experienced no hiccups to the technology our end looks good. Remains to be seen how the post-trade works out Monday.

Who traded at Burgundy today?
Olof: We had 13 banks lined up and all except two were active.  The reason to this was related to trading technology issues which will be resolved in the next few days.

Has the owners committed to be trading a certain volume at Burgundy?
Olof: No, they are obliged to best execution policies according to MiFID but our offering with very low trading fees in combination with free, realtime orderbook data and a very sophisticated platform is attractive to all participants in the Nordic Market.

What do you think about the weeks to come?
Olof: We are launching a new sub-market/country each Friday going forward, following the same pattern. First couple of weeks will be very limited trading to get technology and post-trade tuned in. On 12 June, we have a complete list of Nordic blue-chips and ETF’s on the platform, which represents 85% of total Nordic traded volume.

Anything else?
Olof: A great thank you to all participant’s technology staff, vendors and third party suppliers and my own crew who have worked tirelessly to get this new marketplace up and running in eight months.

You have just been approved by the Swedish FSA – how do you feel?
Olof: I’m very happy that this piece is in place now and that we are ready to commence operations Friday. My staff and all the trading participants, their suppliers, third party developers and vendors will now be able to see the launch of the trading platform according to the original timetable.

What does the approval mean to Burgundy – what will happen?
Olof: This is basically a “driving license” to go ahead with live trading and offer qualified trading participants to commence trading operations on our platform.  The FSA process is very rigorous and before granting us permission, they have done a thorough review of our organization, agreements, rulebooks, people and systems.

What are the plans going forward?
Olof: We are gradually building out the stock universe in May and June to have ca 140 names representing 85% of the traded volume in the Nordic area by 12th June. After that, we add stocks on request with a target to have all 800 Nordic names by end of the year. From 4th quarter, we are adding a central counterparty risk service, meaning that the blue-chips will be cleared by EMCF in Amsterdam, with full netting vs other competing platforms such as CHI-X and NASDAQ OMX.  We are also providing a warrants trading facility before end of the year.