Argentina’s Central Securities Depository (CSD), Caja de Valores, has gone live with its new platform using Nasdaq’s post-trade technology, calling it a ‘historic step’ in pushing for financial digital advancements within the Argentinian market.
The CSD, owned by the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange (BYMA), said that Nasdaq’s technology offers standardised protocols for it to easily connect to third parties and in-house trading and clearing offerings.
Gonzalo Pascual Merlo, chief executive of BYMA, said: “We are proud to take this historic step for the custody of the Argentine capital market, which is the result of great teamwork within BYMA and Nasdaq. As an organisation, we are committed to the development of the Argentine economy and the growth of the country.”
The Buenos Aires-based CSD said that with Nasdaq’s technology, it will be able to dramatically reduce the time-to-market for new asset classes, events and services on its platform; as well as benefiting from frequent upgrades to keep up to date with international standards and best practices.
Merlo added: “Argentina’s capital market has been subject to periods of substantial increases in transaction volumes, which has put pressure on its own technological infrastructure. At BYMA we have prepared for this scenario with a new custody system which responds to the needs of our market.”
Non-standard instruments, such as the Argentinian specific asset class, will still be offered on the old system. Caja de Valores said it aims to migrate these instruments onto the new platform within Q1 2024.
Magnus Haglind, senior vice president and head of Marketplace Technology at Nasdaq, said: “CSDs play a vital role at the heart of the capital markets ecosystem and are increasingly demanding agile infrastructure to respond to incoming regulations, adapt to changing market conditions, and capitalise on emerging growth opportunities.”
The Argentinian CSD said it acknowledges the benefits of modernising its previously outdated legacy system, highlighting the need to handle more transactions per second, the guarantee of scalability and to accommodate future market expansion.
Haglind added: “The development of global CSD infrastructure is vital to keep pace with the rapidly changing investment landscape. With much of the post-trade industry running on legacy technology, we welcome the opportunity to partner with Caja de Valores and support the ongoing development of Argentina’s capital market.”
Nasdaq first signed a deal to provide its post-trade technology infrastructure to Argentina’s Caja de Valores in 2019. This followed a similar agreement with the Chilean CSD back in 2017.