OMX wants to link stock markets of Baltic and Nordic Countries

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The OMX concern, which manages the securities exchanges of Helsinki, Stockholm, and the Baltic States, still wants to set up a stock market that would involve all of the Nordic Countries and the Baltic States. Under the plan, a unified list of companies in all of the countries would be set up within a few years.
      "Our goal is a completely integrated market for the Baltic and Nordic regions", said Jukka Ruuska, President of HEX Integrated Markets, as he introduced a new trading system along with Magnus Böcker, CEO of the OMX concern.
     
The SAXESS trading platform was originally developed by the Stockholm securities exchange. On Monday it was taken into use in Helsinki. It had previously been introduced in Stockholm, Copenhagen, Oslo, Reykjavik, Tallinn, and Riga. It will later be introduced in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius.
      Technical integration has therefore been more rapid than the integration of ownership. The bourses of Stockholm, Helsinki, and all of the Baltic States are part of the OMX concern, but the Danish, Norwegian, and Icelandic exchanges are outside of it.
      "This is the world’s most integrated stock market, if it is measured in terms of numbers of places to trade", Ruuska says.
     
The Stockholm Stock Exchange OM bought its Finnish equivalent, HEX, two years ago, and last year the companies merged. Many expected that the merger would be reflected in the rapid emergence of common lists of companies. However, this has not yet been the case.
      Ruuska nevertheless says that things are going according to plan. He says that the "technical foundation" that has been established can bring things forward.
      According to the OMX "road map of integration", brokers in each of the bourses in the SAXESS system will be entitled to automatic membership in all of the markets in the Nordic and Baltic regions next year.


Links:
  HEX press release: SAXESS trading platform launched successfully at Helsinki, Tallinn and Riga stock exchanges

Helsingin Sanomat