Against a fluid and rapidly-evolving global financial landscape, the introduction of this new enhanced automated platform will further liberalise and modernise our capital market ecosystem to maintain our country’s edge, our relevance and our competitiveness in the international marketplace.
This statement was made by the Minister of Financial Services and Good Governance, Mr Mahen Kumar Seeruttun, at the launch of the Stock Exchange of Mauritius’s (SEM) brand new Automated Trading System (ATS), “Avento” and its state-of-the art online trading app, mySEM, yesterday, at the Labourdonnais Hotel, Caudan Waterfront, in Port Louis.
The Chief Executive (CE) of the Stock Exchange of Mauritius, Mr Sunil Benimadhu, the Chairperson of Securities and Trading Technology, Mr Zack Hodgson, and other personalities were present on the occasion.
Minister Seeruttun highlighted that with the launch, we are moving the exchange to an influential investment position poised to play a key role in the country’s financial architecture. “The natural consequences of such innovative development for policy-makers and market players is the contribution of the capital market to our country’s economic development and ultimately to wealth creation for our people,” he pointed out.
Furthermore, he emphasised that the imperative for the country is to remain at par with global best practices and front-line developments in technology and business models and, in so doing, this will take to another level the evolution of the Mauritius International Financial Centre as a business-friendly and conducive environment for investments and reinforce our position as a trustworthy facilitator for investments into Africa.
Minister Seeruttun also dwelt on the support that is being given at the level of his Ministry to provide the necessary enabling legal and regulatory environment for the Exchange to pursue its internationalisation strategy as the aim is now to open Mauritius even more to the world by allowing international brokers and custodian banks across the world to connect to our platform at a mere click.
These include: building bridges with the world and inviting more players into the system; stimulating competition in the domestic market; providing new business opportunities to the Global Business sector for their growth-seeking clients to fund their expansion through a SEM listing and; raising capital in different international currencies and asset classes.
As regards the ATS, Minister Seeruttun indicated that this system will allow SEM’s Surveillance Team to pick up in real-time alerts relating to market abuse, manipulative practices and other irregular trading activities, thus, greatly assisting the Financial Services Commission in its supervisory role. The new system, he stressed, allowing enhanced surveillance, comes in to strengthen our resolve and ability to maintain our reputation as a clean and trusted International Financial Centre.
As regards the mySEM app, it can be accessed from a basic smartphone and, as such, allows investors to follow the market real-time, order real-time as well as login to Central Depository and Settlement Co. Ltd (CDS) accounts and access interactive charting of a company’s shares over one year. “With the appropriate education, mobile-based trading will definitely help make the stock market more accessible to the public and pursue Government’s vision of building a nation of Investors, an Inclusive Mauritius leaving nobody behind,” the Minister stated.
For his part, the CE of SEM recalled that this new ATS comes after 21 years after SEM made history by becoming the first Exchange in Africa to set up a fully automated Exchange platform from trading to clearing and settlement.
This change, he declared, comes due to several factors, including a generous grant given to us by African Development Bank (AfDB) to fund the implementation phase of the system; the relentless drive to innovate, embrace new state-of-the-art technology so as to better service our stakeholders, investors, issuers, regulators, data vendors and; so that Avento facilitates SEM’s pursuance of its differentiation and internationalisation strategy.
Avento, Mr Benimadhu underscored, will give a new impetus to this internationalisation strategy on several fronts, namely: enhancing SEM’s attractiveness as a listing and trading platform for Exchange Traded Funds; setting the stage for international brokers to connect to SEM platform as remote members and attract more international order-flows to our market, creating thereby the space for enhanced liquidity; opening the door for the SEM to enter the derivatives space and plan for future market development of new products, including futures and options on foreign underlyings; ensuring real-time market surveillance of market activities and promote enhanced market integrity as it comes with a full-fledge state-of-the-art surveillance system, called Clarity and; bringing the stock market within the palm reach of the retail investor in Mauritius as Avento comes with a brand-new high-end and state-of-the-art on-line trading app, the mySEM app.
In addition, he pointed out that the SEM has been chosen among seven African Exchanges by the AfDB to be part of an African Exchanges Linkage Project, which will integrate these exchanges through technology with the aims of ensuring better financial integration in Africa and enhancing secondary market liquidity on African Exchanges.
On this score, Mr Benimadhu indicated that Avento will facilitate this integration process for the SEM and create space for more global order flows to converge to SEM’s platform from the other African Exchanges.
