In 2009 Bursa Malaysia, the Philippine Stock Exchange, Singapore Exchange and the Stock Exchange of Thailand outlined plans to create a single access point to ease cross-border trading and attract more international fund flows into the region.

Last February the group signed a letter of intent appointing Nyse Euronext's IT unit to design, build and manage the technology required for the trading link.

Now the partners say a design study of the IT framework for the link has been completed, paving the way for it to go live towards the end of the year, depending on the vendor selected to work with Nyse Technologies.

The US unit has already said its system will be underpinned by a resilient networking infrastructure that will interconnect the Asean member exchanges and, through them, their respective communities.

The system will include services that tap this network to provide integrated market data feeds from all the participating markets and a standardised entry point for trading. Expansion of the trading link's markets will be helped by the risk management and controls put in place, says Nyse.

In addition, the system will integrate with the Nyse Euronext communication network infrastructure, SFTI. This will give STFI members streamlined access to trading in the Asean Trading Link markets.