NASDAQ, EMCF TEAM ON NORDIC EXCHANGES’ CENTRAL COUNTERPARTY CLEARING

Posted October 9, 2009

STOCKHOLM – The Nasdaq OMX Nordic unit of the Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. has joined with the European Multilateral Clearing Facility (EMCF) to launch a full central counterparty clearing (CCP) service on the Nasdaq OMX exchanges in Copenhagen, Helsinki and Stockholm.

“The Nordic equity markets have taken a quantum leap from bilateral clearing to central counterparty clearing in record time,” says Hans-Ole Jochumsen, President of Nasdaq OMX Nordic. “In a world’s first, we have accomplished this on three markets simultaneously. This is the biggest structural change for the Nordic equity markets since trading became electronic in the early 1990s, and I expect the introduction of CCP to have a similar increasing effect on volumes.”

Under the service, Nasdaq has begun mandatory CCP for nine Nordic securities: three Finnish, Swedish and Danish stocks respectively. The introduction of central counterparty clearing in the Nordic equity markets is part of Nasdaq OMX’s strategy to increase market liquidity by building an open, competitive CCP model in the Nordics. Nasdaq OMX Nordic and its three CCP partners – EMCF, SIX X-clear and Euro CCP – have further agreed to achieve competitive clearing by January 2010.

“Today’s launch is a major step closer to achieving greater market liquidity and a competitive CCP model for the Nordic region,” says Jan Booij, Chief Executive of EMCF.