Financial News has announced the nominations for the Trading & Technology Awards Europe 2022, and SIX Swiss Exchange is – once more – proud to be shortlisted alongside CBOE, Euronext, ICE Markets and Nasdaq.
In 2021, SIX Swiss Exchange saw a certain return to normality. While the pandemic continued to create challenges throughout the year, volatility stabilized and markets recovered. Trading in Swiss equities on platforms outside of Switzerland was resumed in the UK in February 2021. This return to stability paved the way for innovation and growth.
In the trading space, the introduction of Swiss EBBO and SwissAtMid Block orders were major milestones. Both offer unique benefits. Swiss EBBO improves access to best price and depth of liquidity. It is operated via an additional order book to the lit Central Limit Order Book (CLOB) and the non-displayed liquidity pool SwissAtMid – which celebrated its fifth anniversary. The new Block orders make interacting with unique liquidity in SwissAtMid more attractive, allowing participants to manage fragmentation and execute large blocks more efficiently.
In the listing space SIX Swiss Exchange significantly broadened its offering. It launched Sparks, a new equity segment for SMEs. It offers small and medium-sized enterprises, which are the backbone of the Swiss economy, a dedicated market to support their growth and visibility. Furthermore, the Swiss stock exchange received regulatory approval for the new standard for Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs).
Further enhancements include the internationalization of CONNEXOR, when the platform that standardizes and automates the collection and distribution of reference data for structured products was rolled out in the Asia-Pacific market. New functionalities were added in Deal Pool, the central electronic support tool for the Swiss Franc fixed income primary market, and the Quote on Demand trading service was also enhanced to improve execution quality in ETFs and ETPs.
Overall, five new companies listed on SIX Swiss Exchange in 2021: the SPAC listing by the VT5 Acquisition Company and the IPOs of PolyPeptide, Montana Aerospace, medmix and SKAN, for a total transaction value in excess of CHF 2 billion and an overall market capitalization of around CHF 8 billion. In 2021, there were also twelve new product issuers joining SIX Swiss Exchange, offering investors new ETFs, ETPs, investment funds and structured products. Three new trading participants were also welcomed: Exane, Hudson River Trading Europe and SSW-Trading GmbH.
Particularly striking was the growth of ETPs with crypto-currencies as underlying. Six of the twelve new product issuers in 2021 were ETP providers, and they’ve launched a record number of 81 products. Of these, 74 were Crypto-ETPs, and with them, seven new currencies were introduced, several a world’s first to be available on a regulated exchange.
The winners of the Financial News awards will be announced on 30 June 2022. For SIX Swiss Exchange, it is the third nomination in a row, after having won the prestigious award as ‘Exchange of the Year’ for the first time in 2021.