The agreement is part of Bolsas y Mercados Españoles (BME)'s strategy to consolidate its presence in Latin American markets through the company's subsidiaries. By reaching this agreement BME takes one step ahead in the development of the company's function as an IT- services provider.
Under the terms of the technical agreement, the Madrid Stock Exchange will licence the Quito stock exchange to use its trading system and provide the exchange with the necessary technical assistance to implement the platform.
The Madrid Stock Exchange will also provide the Quito stock exchange's staff with the material resources and relevant training. The co-operation agreement intends to create deeper links between the two stock exchanges and boost the institutional ties between both markets in order to work closer on joint projects. Upon signing the agreement, Antonio Zoido, Chairman of BME and Bolsa de Madrid said: "The agreement is one step ahead in deepening and boosting the links between the capital markets of Latin America and Spain, which is a vital commitment for BME".
Other several agreements with Latin Amercian exchanges have been reached within the ambit of co-operation with the region's markets, such as the appointment of the Madrid Stock Exchange as consultant of choice of the Colombian stock exchange in November 2002, the signing of a technical assistance agreement with the stock exchange of the Dominican Republic in July 2002 and the agreement reached with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in March 2002 to strengthen and boost Latin American capital markets and promote the region's knowledge of the stock market.
The Spanish stock exchange's trading system, SIBE, is one of the most reliable in the world. Established in 1995 and fully developed by the Madrid Stock Exchange, the state of the art technology that supports the system and its functional features have allowed the system over the last few years to handle big trading volumes efficiently and transparently. Today the system operates efficiently on the Caracas, Montevideo and El Salvador exchanges.
