Deutsche Börse says the Bulgarian Stock Exchange is implementing its Xetra electronic dealing system under a five year contract that will also see it provide hosted trading services to the Sofia Stock Exchange.
The Xetra system is currently being implemented at the Bulgarian exchange and is expected to be operational by mid-2008. The host computers for the operation are located in Frankfurt-Hausen.
The system will be used to manage trading of approximately 500 securities for 81 Bulgarian participants.
The deal will enable existing Xetra users to directly access the Bulgarian market. In turn, the 81 new participants will have the opportunity to trade the more than 17,000 instruments currently listed on the platform.
The Xetra platform is also used by the Vienna and Irish Stock Exchange stock exchanges. Meanwhile the Shanghai Stock Exchange, which operates China's largest equity market, will be using Xetra technology as the basis of its new trading platform.
News of the deal comes as the German exchange reports "the most successful quarter in the history of Deutsche Börse to date".
The exchange's profit jumped 36% in the July-September period to EUR238.2 million from EUR175.1 million a year ago. Q3 sales revenue rose to EUR561.9 million from EUR432 million in the year ago period.
"Strong growth in business activity paired with cost discipline contributed to these excellent results for the third quarter," says Deutsche Börse CFO Thomas Eichelmann. "Against the background of strong structural growth drivers across all business areas, as well as positive effects from the restructuring and efficiency program, we expect to achieve a new record result in 2008."