Loyiso Sibali
19 August 2008
Johannesburg — THE JSE's long-awaited equity derivatives trading system went live yesterday morning, promising more flexibility to institutional investors.
The system would allow the introduction of new products and bring increased liquidity to the market, said the director of trading at the JSE, Allan Thomson, yesterday. "We are very happy with how the system performed today. There were a few teething problems but nothing major," said Thomson.
Users of the system had been involved in training for 18 months .
He said although it took the JSE longer than anticipated to get the new system implemented, the exchange was relieved the system was running smoothly.
"Since this was a total replacement of the 15-year-old system we inherited when the JSE bought Safex (the South African Futures Exchange) and not merely an upgrade, we had to be absolutely certain we'd catered for the needs of the equity derivatives market, which are quite different today than they were 15 years ago."
Thomson said the new system was faster, with onscreen prices for single stock futures and options available to the market for the first time.
Eugene Goosen, head of alternative strategies at Metropolitan Asset Managers, said the system ran smoothly all day. However, no large volumes have gone through it yet.
He said the advantages for investors were that the system would integrate smoothly with other systems .
The JSE said the system was designed for the South African equity derivatives market, which in a number of ways was a world leader . The JSE is the largest single stock futures market in the world in terms of number of contracts traded.
"We've always recognised that to remain one of the world's leading exchanges is to ensure we use technology to our advantage," said Thomson. "This system is a case in point."
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