SIX x-clear, the clearing house operated by Swiss market infrastructure provider SIX Securities Services, has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Prague Stock Exchange (PSE) to become the international clearing house for the Czech cash equity market.
SIX x-clear will offer its clearing and risk management services to the PSE over the course of 2012 and establish interoperability with CSD Prague, the market’s current clearing house and central securities depository, and a subsidiary of PSE.
The introduction of clearing competition is expected to lower clearing fees and attract international brokers to the PSE.
“This is yet another important step for SIX Securities Services towards full European expansion, underpinning our superior coverage of primary exchanges,” commented Tomas Kindler, head of clearing relations at SIX Securities Services. “We are very pleased to offer our clients the option to consolidate another market and are fully committed to further extend our services in the central and eastern Europe region.”
PSE is part of the Vienna Stock Exchange-led Central and Eastern European Stock Exchange Group (CEESEG), which also includes the Hungarian and Slovenian domestic bourses.
The announcement follows a deal struck between CEESEG, Austrian market infrastructure providers and the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) in June to develop a new technology platform that would underpin the group’s clearing services.
The agreement with lead to the creation of CCP.CEE – a standardised cross-regional clearing infrastructure for CEESEG equity markets that will start to be implemented in mid-2012. The platform’s software has been designed by LSEG and developed by the exchange group’s technology subsidiary, Millennium IT.