SWX Strategy Of Internationalization Confirmed

At its ordinary meeting of 25 January, the Committee of the Board of Directors of SWX Swiss Exchange discussed virt-x. The Committee is pleased to note that virt-x has already met key objectives set for the introductory phase:

• Successful technical migration of SMI liquidity to an exchange in the European region.
• Free choice of and automatic access to several settlement organizations.
• Creation of the regulatory conditions for pan-European trading.

In virt-x, SWX is providing a trading platform for banks and issuers in Switzerland that has been designed largely by players in the Swiss financial market. virt-x technology is furnished and operated from Switzerland. The knowhow required to operate an exchange is supplied by the Swiss financial industry.

virt-x is the logical continuation of the successful strategy of internationalization initiated three years ago, when foreign institutions were invited to become SWX participants. The migration of SMI trading to a platform in the EU zone also prompted major non-Swiss banks to seek direct access to the blue chip platform organized by SWX. Expanding the participant base has significantly improved SMI liquidity. Market share has been won back. The Committee of the Board of Directors of SWX is confident that virt-x will also increase its share of the market for other European benchmark equities.

Through its part in establishing virt-x, SWX has created another tool to help financial intermediaries operating from Switzerland respond to the irreversible process of internationalization currently underway in trading and - as with Eurex, the world's largest derivatives market - has made a major contribution to influencing and shaping the course of consolidation among Europe's exchanges.