Nordic Benchmarks Authorized by EU Supervisor – Paving Also the Way for Swiss Benchmarks

SIX Financial Information Nordic AB, Stockholm, has been authorized on Friday 14 June 2019 as an EU benchmark administrator by Sweden's financial supervisory authority Finansinspektionen according to the new EU Benchmarks Regulation (BMR) and its benchmark business is now supervised. “The authorization of our Nordic benchmark business is an important step for our index clients and our ambitions in the index business. Our clients can rely on us as a robust and stable partner managing regulatory change,” mentioned Dr. Christian Bahr, Head Index & iNAV Services SIX.

It follows an intensive joint effort over the last two years to ensure that the SIX benchmarks can continue to be distributed and used within the EU. The authorization of the Nordic benchmarks is the first step in this process. We can leverage this newly supervised entity and will go through the BMR endorsement authorization process for the Swiss indices used as benchmarks. This will then ensure that the widely known and used Swiss indices like the SMI, SPI, the Swiss Bond Indices and the SARON as the alternative to CHF LIBOR can be still offered to clients in Europe.

Nordic Indices Offering
With over 600 indices and 10 benchmarks of all sizes and profiles, SIX has developed a portfolio of indices for the Nordic region and especially Sweden that provide investors and issuers with benchmarks necessary to measure and trade the performance of key segments and strategies. Both sell-side banks and brokers, buy-side financial institutions as well as media and listed companies are users of the indices. SIX index offering ranges from blue chip indices, strategy indices, ESG as well as individual customized indices. The Nordic indices are provided out of Stockholm.

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