Kuala Lumpur: Nasdaq OMX has agreed to sell its trading systems to the Bangladesh bourse in a sign that the US group is ramping up technology sales to exchanges in Asia as they modernise to boost turnover.

The deal brings to 18 the number of exchanges in Asia that use Nasdaq technology, either for equities and derivatives trading or for clearing, or for both.

Asia’s exchanges, long used to offering mostly equities trading, are starting to diversify into derivatives as demand grows among local and foreign traders for more sophisticated products.

Bursa Malaysia and the Stock Exchange of Thailand have been promoting equities and futures trading to locals, while upgrading systems to attract foreign traders, including so-called high-frequency traders.

The Malaysian exchange in December started using a new Nasdaq trading system for equities, fixed income and exchange traded funds. The Singapore and Australian exchanges already use Nasdaq trading systems.

Nasdaq’s latest deal is to provide the Dhaka Stock Exchange with a faster trading system “to further increase regional and international investor demand”, the Bangladesh bourse said.

Nasdaq OMX is known in the US for operating the third largest stock market after the New York Stock Exchange and a combined BATS and Direct Edge.

But in revenue terms it is more of a seller of trading and risk management technology and so-called corporate services, which includes the software that powers web-based corporate earnings presentations.

This accounts for 29 per cent of group revenues, compared with 10 per cent for pure stock trading, through fees charged every time a trade is done. 


Corporate services

Robert Frojd, Nasdaq’s Singapore-based regional manager for South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific, said the group would now try to sell corporate services to emerging exchanges in Asia where it already had a relationship by providing them with trading systems.

“We are looking to see if we can leverage our relationships with exchanges locally and whether they can provide those services to the companies they serve,” he said in an interview with the Financial Times.

Last month, Nasdaq opened an office in Manila to provide software and IT support for its corporate solutions business globally.

Deutsche Borse in January took a 5 per cent stake in Taifex, the Taiwan’s futures exchange, and later said it planned to build an Asian clearing house in Singapore. Atlanta-based IntercontinentalExchange is working on the relaunch of the Singapore Mercantile Exchange, a commodity bourse it bought in November for $150 million.

— Financial Times