Technology

Forget the familiar image of the trading floor bustling with brokers, chalkies and telephones - today NZX Firms are connected to FASTER - Fully Automated Screen Trading and Electronic Registration.

FASTER technology is a real-time fully electronic securities exchange, incorporating trading, settlement and registration, as well as the recording of market information, databases and support information services.

From two computer centres in Auckland and Wellington, FASTER receives trades and matches them according to price and time. Stockbrokers, registries, payments facilities, Data Distributors and even this website are all connected to the system, giving maximum visibility and market transparency.

FASTER has eliminated vast amounts of paperwork and documentation and saves investors and other participants time and money. For example, it has helped NZX reduce the average settlement period from 28 days in the early 1980s to an average of 1.5 days today (depending on the size of the trade).

GlobalVision Trading

All NZX Brokers are connected to the GlobalVision Trading system, GlobalVision, allowing for the real-time electronic processing of all buy and sell orders into a central system for matching and transaction processing. GlobalVision is the principal source of trades entering FASTER Settlement. As trades are matched in GlobalVision they are passed to FASTER Settlement where they are cleared and settled.

NZX GLOBALVISION TRADING SYSTEM

NZX introduced the new GlobalVision Trading system on July 6th 2007. GlobalVision has been provided by Trayport and offers Participants a more efficient way of Trading into the New Zealand Market. It also means NZX can expand its product base and offerings to Participants and investors, as GlobalVision can support a wide range of products and functionality.

Trayport is a leading provider of real-time electronic trading software. Trayport is fully dedicated to providing multi-asset-class trading platforms to exchanges, brokers and traders. GlobalVision is a proven, reliable solution that has been working for over 8,000 users world-wide since 1996. Founded in 1993, Trayport is privately held and has offices in London, New Jersey and Singapore.

FASTER Settlement Sytem (FSS)

FASTER Settlement System(FSS)is the core exchange service platform developed and owned by NZX since 1988. It completes the remainder of the security trading sequence – clearing, settlement and registration (through the registrars). While FSS handles around 450,000 to 600,000 trades a year, the current system has capacity for at least three times this volume.

FSS is able to provide all participants and users with a single and consistent view of all registries. FSS therefore operates as a virtual central registry and provides facilities comparable to the central depository system operated in some countries.

The effect of FSS has been to significantly reduce the marginal operating costs for NZX, registries and NZX Firms. Investors have benefited through some of the lowest securities transaction costs in the world.

Q&A about NZX’s Trading System

1. So why did NZX make a change to the Trading system?

The key consideration for NZX was to build flexibility into our trading system and infrastructure to allow the addition of new products and features without the need for expensive bolt-ons. The Trayport system also delivers flexibility and proven performance. Trayport offered us a system that imposed minimal impact on participants, while opening up key opportunities for future development of New Zealand markets.

2. I use the internet to trade, what will I notice when I trade into NZX?

For the most part you will not notice any changes, there is however, a new market session – pre-close, which runs from 4.45pm to 5pm . Pre-close takes place just before the new closing auction and works just like the morning's pre-open session. As an investor you will notice that there is NO ORDER MATCHING during this time. 

The closing auction has been added to align the New Zealand markets more closely with international norms, in particular the ASX. The auction's main aim is to maximise the executable quantity - a positive for our markets.

Please note, the pre-close has the same permission as the pre-open market session, ie clients and brokers can enter, amend and delete orders, and create negotiated deals - but there is no order matching until the auction runs.

The following table explains all market sessions and their associated activities:

3. What does it mean for me?

Nothing. Your broker has done all the hard work, testing, training and development; you should notice no change at your end, apart from orders not matching between 4.45 and 5pm . They are instead parked until the Auction starts at around 5pm, where all orders are matched.

4. What do I need to do?

Nothing. Your broker will notify you if there is any change to the way your account is managed.

5. What will happen with my 3rd party data providers (IRESS, Bloomberg, Reuters, etc)

Nothing. All 3rd party data providers have developed to the new system and you should see no changes to Market Information you recieve.