Tel Aviv Stock Exchange Trading Goes On-Line

The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange announced that it commenced on-line trading in stocks. After receiving the Exchange's approval last month, the first two non-bank member firms are enabling their customers to send buy and sell orders via the Internet. The Bank of Israel announced last week that the banks' customers will be permitted to trade on-line as well. The Supervisor of Banks, Dr. Yitzhak Tal, has given the go-head for the banks to expand their services over the Internet. Now that they been granted permission by the central bank, several banks have announced that they will soon begin to operate on-line trading services. Expressing the stock exchange's satisfaction at the introduction of on-line trading, Ester Levanon, TASE's Executive Vice President and Head of Computers and Operations Department, said: "On-line trading will help to increase the individual investors' activity and will lead to a further growth in foreign investment. Trading via the Internet is a further stage in the computerisation revolution that began at the stock exchange with the introduction of the TACT (Tel Aviv Continuous Trading) system." The potential for on-line trading had already been taken into account when planning the TACT system, which was launched in 1997. TACT was designed as an order-driven system to enable the largest possible number of individual investors to participate in trading. This approach has already conformed to the present on-line trend. Concurrently, the TASE is taking measures to secure trading information in order to guarantee that proper trading standards are maintained in the Internet era. Stock exchange members who wish to provide their customers with trading access are required to adopt various security measures. Member firms are also required to submit the matter to their boards of directors for approval, and to give the directors details of the security measures that have been adopted. The Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) was founded in 1953. The Exchange is owned by its 28 member firms and is closely supervised by the Israel Securities Authority, whose main mission is protecting investors. The TASE provides highly advanced fully electronic trading services for shares, bonds and Treasury-bills and it operates two trading floors for derivatives. All trades are cleared and settled by the TASE clearing House. The TASE offers the international investor the appealing combination of attractive investment opportunities and developed market services.