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SECZ licenses first alternative trading platform

Business
The Securities Exchange Commission of Zimbabwe (SECZ) has licensed Financial Securities Exchange (Pvt) Limited (Finsec) to operate the first alternative trading platform, a move set to diversify stock market’s trade platforms.

The Securities Exchange Commission of Zimbabwe (SECZ) has licensed Financial Securities Exchange (Pvt) Limited (Finsec) to operate the first alternative trading platform, a move set to diversify stock market’s trade platforms.

BY BUSINESS REPORTER

In a Government Gazette published last week, SECZ chief executive officer, Tafadzwa Chinamo said Finsec was registered on September 27.

The licensing follows the gazetting of the Alternative Trading Platform rules in Statutory Instrument 100 of 2016, which were gazetted in August giving the capital markets regulator the mandate to licence alternative trading platforms.

According to the rules, the initial registration fee for a platform will be $5 000 with an annual renewal fee of $4 000.

SECZ said an ATP is recognised as a lower and second rate exchange in terms of the Securities and Exchange Act (Cap 24:25), and is an alternative to the traditional stock exchange.

An ATP is an entity which, without being regulated as a traditional exchange, operates an automated trading system that brings together primary market issuers of securities and investors, who wish to purchase those securities and secondary market of sellers and buyers of securities. It also brings together primary issuers and buyers, and secondary sellers and buyers of any other securities, as may be prescribed or approved by the commission.

SECZ said an ATP could deliver a “range of services, from the bringing together of buyers and sellers to complete trading platforms, which offer similar functionality to that provided by exchanges, but within a different regulatory framework”.

“Apart from serving as an alternative means of accessing liquidity by issuers, ATPs also provide investors with enhanced flexibility, security, transparency and reduced trading costs, as well as competition to the established securities exchange,” SECZ said.