The Nasdaq OMX Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:NDAQ) today announced that it has selected European Multilateral Clearing Facility (EMCF), a wholly-owned Fortis subsidiary, to deliver clearing services for the NASDAQ OMX Pan European Market.
"Our relationship with EMCF is an important step in our plan to leverage the growth opportunities before us in this post-MiFID environment. It will enable us to offer not only faster and better executions, but a highly reliable, seamless post-trade experience," commented Chris Concannon, Executive Vice President of Transactions Services, NASDAQ OMX.
Jan Booij, Managing Director of EMCF said: "From the start of the European Multilateral Clearing Facility we have shown a strong determination to substantially grow the clearing businesses. The collaboration with the NASDAQ OMX Group is additional evidence of our strategy which is based on the simple principles of reliability, price competition and quality of service. Servicing the NASDAQ OMX Pan European Market will bring the benefits of netted settlements and margins based on netted positions to our customers active on multiple trading venues."
Settlement will be handled domestically on the Pan European Market. All trades will settle in the underlying domestic settlement system and accordingly will have settlement fungibility with trades on the primary market.
The NASDAQ OMX Pan European Market will enable best execution in high volume securities trading in a cross-border, multi-market environment.
The market, which will be the first platform to connect European liquidity pools with Pan-European routing, is scheduled to open in September 2008. At launch it will trade approximately 300 of the most actively traded European blue chip shares. The NASDAQ OMX trading platform is recognized as the fastest in the industry with peak trading speeds of 250 microseconds. The launch of the NASDAQ OMX Pan European Market is subject to FSA approval.
Last week NASDAQ OMX announced it has appointed Charlotte Crosswell as president of its Pan European Market.