New Zealand Exchange Limited (NZX) wishes to advise that Westpac Banking Corporation (Westpac) will go live as an accredited NZX FASTER Participant from today.
Westpac is the first retail bank to adopt paperless settlement of the legal title to NZX securities. Electronic settlement means that Westpac will increase its transaction efficiency, volume capability and mitigate the risk associated with a manual system.
"We are delighted with the move to a paperless settlement system for NZX securities," said Peter Thomas, Westpac General Manager, Customer Solutions and Delivery. "It enables us to add more value to our customers by being able to provide an improved, efficient service."
Martyn Bain, NZX Head of Market Technologies said, "We are very excited to welcome Westpac as a NZX FASTER participant. Globally paperless security settlement is the way forward. We hope that more financial market participants will take the opportunity to improve their business processes with this technology too."
The participant code for Westpac will be WION and will commence from the start of business on Thursday, 15 June 2006.