[ A D V E R T O R I A L ]
The best of both
worlds
The Swiss market has brought together trading and post-trade services under
the umbrella of Exchange Services. Focusing on recent trading innovations,
Werner Bürki, head trading at SIX Securities & Exchanges explains the context.
T
his year has seen a strategic
and operating realignment of
several activities within SIX Group.
Under the banner of SIX2020, SIX
has grouped together its trading,
clearing, settlement and custody
activities and merged services
for the Swiss payment system,
including interbank payments,
SEPA payments, the processing of
card-based and mobile payments
for banks, operating ATMs, and
e-bills. SIX has also strengthened
its innovative capacity by building
upon the independent Innovation
& Digital business unit as a vehicle
for all future innovation.
SIX now offers products and ser-
vices for securities – from trading
to custody - financial information
and payment transactions through
five business units: Securities &
Exchanges, Banking Services,
Financial Information, Innovation
& Digital and Cards. The Exchange
Services portfolio is a single source
for Swiss and international clients
for listing, trading and post-trade
solutions.
In mid-2019, the SIX Digital Ex-
change (SDX) will collapse trading,
clearing and settlement in a new
venture designed to create a secure
42 // TheTrade // Autumn 2018
regulated environment for invest-
ment in digital assets. SDX will
initially look at tokenising existing
assets before exploring the poten-
tial of tokenisation for broadening
asset allocation opportunities.
SDX will run as a regulated
market equivalent to our exist-
ing facilities and we are working
with lawmakers and regulators to
ensure that tokenisation achieves
the same status for investors as
they would currently expect from a
share purchase.
In the meantime, SIX continues
to be the reference market for
Swiss equity trading with a market
share of 70% in the SMI, a 90%
presence of the best bid/offer
in our order books, and average
spreads of 3.55bps – 0.4bps tighter
than our nearest lit rivals.
The year to date
The first half of 2018 saw year-on-
year trading turnover grow to CHF
733.5 billion, with the number of
transactions rising by a striking
21.6%, spurred partly by the advent
of MiFID ll and partly by changes
in tick sizes creating more tickets.
SwissAtMid, our non-displayed
liquidity pool and the largest such
pool for Swiss equities, registered a
record month in July. Value traded
amounted to CHF1.4 billion from
59,000 trades. It offered clients an
average 4bps price improvement
that translated into direct savings of
over CHF2 million for our market
participants. In July, there were
42 trading participants active in
SwissAtMid. Twenty-two were
Swiss-domiciled, 14 UK-based and
the remainder were from France,
Germany, Ireland and the Nether-
lands. With a trading turnover of
CHF 4.7 billion in 2017, SwissAtMid
has significantly contributed to the
exchange’s impressive market share
in trading of Swiss large cap equities
of 70.6% (up from 64.6% in 2016).
Earlier, in May, SIX launched two
new order types – Limit Plus and