Helsinki, Tallinn and Riga stock exchanges to adopt common Nordic cash trading platform

15.09.2004 RIG

On September 27, 2004, the Helsinki, Tallinn and Riga stock exchanges will harmonize their cash markets by adopting the SAXESS? cash trading system already used by the Stockholm Stock Exchange, thus taking the next step in OMX’s vision of a fully integrated Nordic Baltic securities market.

The cash market integration will generate benefits for members, enhance liquidity and promote trading in Finnish and Baltic equities. As a result of the integration, exchange members and investors will gain easy access to Finnish, Swedish and Baltic securities through one access point to the common trading system, and will also benefit from harmonized rules.

The harmonization of cash markets is in line with the creation of one Nordic Baltic market and includes benefits such as:

• Harmonized trading hours for the Helsinki and Stockholm stock exchanges
  (09:00-17:30 CET).
• Harmonized trading day structure through the introduction of a closing call at
  the Helsinki, Tallinn and Riga stock exchanges. 
• Implementation of the NOREX Member Rules at the Helsinki Stock Exchange and
  the harmonization of the Tallinn and Riga rulebooks with NOREX Member Rules. 
• Introduction of a Joint Baltic Market with jointly marketed securities,
  harmonized listing rules between the Riga and Tallinn stock exchanges and a
  cross-border delivery-versus-payment link between the Estonian and Latvian CSDs. 
• BALTIX, the new pan-Baltic index. 
• RIGSE and VILSE, new capitalization-based total return indexes in Latvia and
  Lithuania.

Through a wider Nordic cooperation, the NOREX alliance, securities from seven exchanges can be traded on the same platform with harmonized rules. The NOREX alliance is made up of the exchanges in Stockholm, Helsinki, Tallinn, Riga, Copenhagen, Oslo and Iceland.

For more information, please contact:
In Finland Anu Ilvonen, Communications Manager, +358 9 6166 7599
In Estonia Tex Vertmann, Communications Manager, +372 640 8862
In Latvia Krista Grintale, Communications Manager, + 371 7212 431
In Sweden Annika Molander, Communications Manager + 46 8 405 6610

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