The European Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II) and its related regulation MiFIR enter into force on 3 January 2018. Article 23 MiFIR requires European investment firms to trade shares on a trading venue within the EU or a third-country trading venue assessed as equivalent. This requirement applies to all shares admitted to trading in the EU, which affects the majority of Swiss equities traded on the SIX Swiss Exchange.

In recent months, the necessary steps were undertaken to ensure that SIX Swiss Exchange attains the status of an equivalent third-country trading venue. The necessary recognition by the European Union of the equivalence of the Swiss legal framework was granted for a temporary period of one year with the EU Commission’s decision of 21 December 2017.

SIX acknowledges that the EU Commission thereby recognises in principle the equivalence of the Swiss legal framework. SIX does, however, regret the temporary nature of the decision and is working on the assumption that equal value will be definitively recognised at a later date.

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Joining the consortium of Contineo as a strategic partner and investor is a first major step towards the internationalization of the CONNEXOR service. The geographic expansion is intended to standardize processes along the value chain and the life-cycle management of structured products internationally. This allows shareholders and clients of SIX to utilize their established set-ups already used in local markets also outside of Europe and thereby benefit from synergies and scale in return. Contineo’s network of issuers, private banks and wealth management firms benefits from the long established infrastructure experience of SIX in order to grow the Asian market for structured products.

Christoph Landis, Division CEO SIX Swiss Exchange, commented: “Today, we are very proud to announce the internationalization of CONNEXOR and happy to see that more market participants around the world will enjoy the efficiency gains that our unique offering has already provided reliably to the Swiss marketplace.”

Mark Munoz, CEO of Contineo, commented: “This new partnership confirms our core principles of operating an open and shared network that benefits all financial institutions by reducing cost and increasing efficiency.”

CONNEXOR is an infrastructure for financial products data. It offers market participants a series of services throughout a financial instrument’s entire life-cycle and supports the fulfillment of regulatory obligations such as MiFID II or IRS 871(m). The central, standardized capture and maintenance of product data simplifies workflows and reduces the number of interfaces. As a result issuers, data vendors and data recipients benefit from substantial efficiency advantages.

Contineo is the first industry supported, open trading platform for private banks and wealth management firms to access issuers of structured products. It launched in January 2015 with the backing of most of Asia-Pacific’s key structured products houses and has built up a strong issuer base. Besides SIX, its current shareholders include AG Delta, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, HSBC, and Societe Generale.

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“We are always keen to explore innovative technologies which could serve as basis for wider commercial offering,” said Chris Landis, Division CEO SIX Swiss Exchange. “Working together with Nasdaq reinforces our commitment towards being an exchange at the technology forefront.”

“Nasdaq is a strong believer in the power of emerging technologies to transform financial markets,” said Lars Ottersgård, Executive Vice President and Head of Market Technology, Nasdaq. “This project with SIX Swiss Exchange –one of our long-term partners, is a prime opportunity to explore and implement blockchain technology in a controlled, highly collaborative environment.”

In October 2016, Nasdaq and SIX Swiss Exchange extended their current technology contract, which includes trading technology for SIX equities, ETFs, structured products, funds and fixed income markets, as well as SMARTS Market Surveillance and Nasdaq Pre-Trade Risk Management. The two companies have been partners for more than 10 years.

Nasdaq’s market infrastructure technologies, including trading, real-time risk, index, clearing, CSD and market surveillance systems are operated in over 100 marketplaces, regulators, clearing houses and central securities depositories across the Americas, Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean.

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October 31, 2016: Nasdaq and Six Swiss Exchange announced the extension of their current technology contract, which includes X-stream INET Trading technology for all SIX markets, including equities, ETFs, structured products, funds and fixed income, as well as SMARTS Market Surveillance and Nasdaq Pre-Trade Risk Management. In addition, the new SIX Swiss Exchange At Midpoint (SwissAtMid) dark pool was launched on Nasdaq trading and surveillance technology earlier this month. The two companies have been partners for more than 10 years.

“We are delighted to extend our successful technology relationship with Nasdaq,” said Christoph Landis, Division CEO, SIX Swiss Exchange. “Our broadly diversified international client base benefits from the multifunctional and high-performance trading platform as well as from the surveillance and control instruments. The cutting edge X-stream INET Trading technology allows to implement investment decisions in a stable, secure and reliable trading environment and therefore supports us in serving our clients.”

“We are proud to grow and expand our long-term relationship with SIX,” said Lars Ottersgård, Executive Vice President and Head of Market Technology, Nasdaq. “SIX is one of the leading exchanges in the world who consistently strives to bolster reliability, latency and capacity performance across their markets. It’s an honor to support them in their ongoing technological and innovative endeavors.”

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