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| Hodgkinson, al-Abdulla, al-Mansoori, Mujtaba and Jack (from left) seen after their meeting with top global investment bankers |
This was announced after a meetings between senior QE officials and international investment banks in London and Paris where the Qatari representatives, led by Saif Khalifa al-Mansoori, QE deputy CEO, accompanied by NYSE officials, briefed top bankers on the prospects of investing in Qatar, the world’s fastest-growing economy.
Lee Hodgkinson and Ian Jack, represented NYSE, while Hussain Mohammad al-Abdulla, sales and marketing director and Mohsin Mujtaba, product and market development director, made up part of the QE delegation.
The meetings focussed on the connectivity between QE and global markets in London, Paris and New York through the SFTI network.
“The connectivity is expected to be available soon,” said a spokesman of the Qatari bourse, which has already extended its daily trading session by an hour to enhance global exposure by increasing the overlap with Asian and European stock markets.
This (SFTI) development, according to the spokesman, is part of the development strategy adopted by QE who said the connectivity between QE and the NYSE Euronext network will be followed by further steps aimed at introducing Delivery-Versus-Payment (DVP), diversifying the traded products and increasing liquidity in the market.
The Qatar Financial Market Authority has allowed HSBC, QNB and Standard Chartered to offer custody services at the Qatar’s bourse, which is seen as a crucial step towards the DVP mechanism.
“International market participants that are connected to NYSE Euronext markets will be able to easily access Qatar Exchange through Direct Electronic Access (DEA) under the sponsorship of the local brokers,” said the spokesman.
SFTI is the industry’s first network offering customers global connectivity coupled with innovative technology solutions. Several firms have already been accessing global financial markets though the SFTI network, which allows participating firms to quickly and easily “plug in” to access the value-added products and services offered by a broad range of technology providers.
The Qatari bourse had undertaken several key measures aligned with the country’s plan to transform the country into a global financial centre in the region, which included the launch of the UTP (Universal Trading Platform) system that enables investors to trade bonds and funds and then derivatives.
The new, sophisticated UTP, which features more trade orders and increase safety aspects than that of its predecessor Horizon, has put the Qatari stockexhange on par with major exchanges like the NYSE and Euronext markets in France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Portugal, according to QE CEO Andre Went.
One of the important features of the UTP was that it has introduced a closing auction, allowing more investors to participate at the last price of the day and significantly improving the transparency of the market.
The exchange is currently in talks with the regulator on coming out with the listing rules for bonds in view of the ever increasing need for developing a vibrant primary and secondary debt markets.