"Those who possess informatization possess the world," SSE Assistant to General Manager Bai Shuo made this remark at the "China's Informatization Promotion Meeting in 2006" held in Beijing yesterday. Bai said that international stock markets' competition, increasingly depending on information technology and infrastructure, was, to a great extent, in informatization. And the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE), to strive for a world class exchange, has continuously introduced strategy consultants for information integration in the past six years.
Bai pointed out that SSE's trading volume, with a total of 30 million investment accounts, had reached an all-time high of RMB5,000 billion so far this year. Thus, it will be very pressing for the SSE trading system to ensure the online real-time check of shareholding balance for those accounts.
It was in 2000 when network gained its currency in China that the SSE introduced strategy consultants and IT talents for internal information integration. Since that time, Bai said, the SSE has launched a series of projects, among which the most important was the New Generation Trading System that drew global attention. As the key in exchanges' competition, the new trading system, under the test on the whole market and bug repair, has seen its construction drawing to a close. Moreover, the SSE commercial website has been launched and the 3rd Generation Supervision System is under way.
It is learnt that the New Generation Trading System, capable of handling a total of 400,000 orders in 20 consecutive seconds in peak time, has a daily capacity of 60 million transactions. It can also support the online check of shareholding balance for 80 million investment accounts.
Bai explained that the belated IT application on China's stock market still had its pluses. As paperless trading was launched at the very beginning on the SSE, with no "historical burden", it was soon developed into off-floor distance trading. However, it will be very difficult for the New York Stock Exchange, with a special culture of 300-year tradition of open outcry trading, to break its tradition.
"Informatization is an inevitable way for China's stock exchanges to improve their competitiveness," said Bai. Judging from SSE financial products, its product line, much thinner and weaker compared with those of mature foreign stock markets, has no advantage on the international arena. At present, it is inappropriate to copy overseas products regardless of China's own situation.
