According to the MICEX CEO Alexander Zakharov, the new instrument will be very important for the development of the national economy, helping to integrate the Russian financial market on the basis of the MICEX technologies of trades and guaranteed settlements. He stressed that banks' new possibilities to manage their current liquidity would help to increase the quality of the financial side of the economic activity of the manufacturing sector.
The implementation of the new version of the UTS Rules is scheduled for the middle of April, 2003. As a result, three currency instruments will be traded in the UTS: the US dollar with today delivery (USD/RUB_UTS_TOD), the US dollar with tomorrow delivery (USD/RUB_UTS_TOM) and the euro with today delivery (EUR/RUB_UTS_TOD). The minimal lot of USD/RUB_UTS_TOM is 1000 US dollars.
In compliance with the UTS Rules, trades in the UTS will be held from 10:00 till 16:45, Moscow time, for all currency exchanges. The order of trades and settlements for the day session instruments does not change.
Thus, beginning from the day of the implementation of the new version of the UTS Rules, the MICEX will have the following schedule of currency trades:
|
Time |
Session |
Instruments |
|
10:00
- 11:00 |
Unified Trading Session (UTS) |
USD/RUB_UTS_TOD |
|
11:00
- 11:20. |
Unified Trading Session (UTS) |
EUR/RUB_UTS_TOD |
|
10:00
- 16:45 |
Unified Trading Session (UTS) |
USD/RUB_UTS_TOM |
|
9:30
- 16:45 |
Day
Session |
US
Dollar (USD/RUB _TOD, USD/RUB _TOM, USD/RUB _ SPT, |
The extension of the time of trades in the UTS will not affect the rate of the commission for the purchase and sale of US dollars for Russian rubles as a result of trades in the UTS. As before, for banks, whose volume of purchase and sale of US dollars for Russian rubles in the UTS exceeds 1 mln US dollars, the commission is 0,002% of the total volume of transactions. For banks, whose volume of purchase and sale of US dollars is up to and including 1 mln US dollars, the commission is 0,004%.
The growth of turnovers in the UTS shows that changes, implemented in December, 2002, increased the attractiveness of the UTS for participants in the currency market. The results of trades, held in the UTS in the 1st quarter of 2003, have proved participants' demand for the services of the exchange market: the trading volume in the UTS in instrument USD/RUB_ UTS_??D reached over 10,15 bln US dollars, a 56% increase over the same period of 2002 (6,5 bln US dollars). The trading volume in the UTS in the euro grew by 6% and reached over 344 mln euros.
The MICEX's widening of the range of instruments, traded in the UTS, is aimed at offering market participants a set of services in the exchange currency market, which meet their needs in concluding transactions and effecting settlements. The existing national system of exchange trades covers Russia's leading financial regions and allows commercial banks, located in different time zones, to participate in trades. Today, over 1100 participants (lending institutions and their regional branches) have access to the UTS.
