Norway’s Oslo Børs has agreed on a strategic partnership with the London Stock Exchange (LSE) to increase its competitiveness in the Nordic region.
As part of the deal, the Norwegian bourse will replace its existing equity market trading platform – supplied by OMX – with the LSE’s TradElect trading system in 2009/10. Under the agreement, the two parties will also explore the provision of trading services to Oslo’s equities, derivatives and fixed income markets.
Oslo had previously planned to implement OMX’s Genium trading platform, but the deal stalled after US exchange group Nasdaq took over the Nordic exchange group.
“When OMX said they had plans to create the Genium platform a year ago we were prepared to follow them, but they stopped after Nasdaq bought OMX and the technology partner looked quite different from what had been previously proposed,” Bente Landsnes, CEO, Oslo Børs, told theTRADEnews.com. “This, together with the new competitive situation in Norway, made us look at our strategy and needs for the future.”
Pan-European multilateral trading facilities (MTFs) including Turquoise, Chi-X Europe and Nasdaq OMX Europe have started trading in Nordic stocks and pose a threat to domestic exchanges in the region. BATS Europe, the latest MTF to enter the market, plans to add Nordic securities to its platform from tomorrow, while Burgundy, a regional platform for Nordic stocks, aims to launch in the first half of next year.
Landsnes also cited London’s strong presence in the energy market as a key factor in the deal. “A number of investors in the Norwegian energy market are UK and US investors who normally trade through the UK, so we hope this deal will create more of a combined interest.”
Nasdaq OMX currently holds a 6% stake in the Oslo Børs, but this is not expected to be affected as part of the LSE partnership.