Middle East & Africa

Clearstream and South Africa’s central securities depository Strate have launched a centralised collateral management service for the South African financial market.

Marco Polo Securities has launched its global trading platform today with a focus on using technology to facilitate trading in developed and emerging markets.

A rise in trading volume and value on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, across asset classes, increased operating revenue by 16% to R794m.

Barclays has added its capital commitment feature to select algorithms available in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), enabling better liquidity provision.

Nasdaq OMX has signed an agreement to bolster Turkey's Borsa Istanbul and turn it into a major trading hub.

Middle Eastern exchange Nasdaq Dubai is set to open a platform for on-exchange trading of Islamic and conventional bonds.

UBS has launched Quant HQ as a new service for quantitative trading firms. The new offering uses solutions from the Swiss bank’s Prime Services and Direct Execution units.

Index provider MSCI will retain the frontier market status of United Arab Emirates and Qatar, despite the two countries’ efforts to align their markets with global standards.

As market participants hunt beyond large-cap equities for alpha generation, accessing small caps is becoming easier in some markets but harder in others.