Pan-European multilateral trading facilities finally started trading in Italian stocks today, even though the London Stock Exchange (LSE) has not completed its planned migration of Italian equities listed on Borsa Italiana to its high-speed TradElect trading platform.
The LSE has, however, finished implementing the upgrade of Monti Titoli, the Italian central securities depository, required to support the migration of Italian stocks to TradElect. A spokesperson for the LSE told theTRADEnews.com that although all system enhancements are now in place the Italian financial regulator had asked for the migration of Italian stocks onto TradElect to be further postponed until 10 November, because of current market volatility.
A statement on the Chi-X website confirmed that the Instinet-owned platform will start trading in five Italian stocks from the MIB40 index today: Enel, Fiat, ENI, Intesa Sanpaolo and UniCredit. The remainder will be available on 20 October.
Turquoise has also started trading UniCredit, ENI and Fiat stocks, with the addition of Tiscali and Beni Stabili on its dark book.
Earlier this year, both the MTFs had to delay the launch of trading in Italian stocks because of delays in the post-merger integration of the LSE and Borsa Italiana, the owner of Monte Titoli.
Testing for clearing providers EMCF – which clears for Chi-X – and EuroCCP – Turquoise’s clearer – was first scheduled to start during the first week of July. The LSE first postponed this testing until 11 August because the migration was incomplete, and imposed further delays until 13 October, citing market turmoil.