BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 26. Baku Stock Exchange (BSE) continues work to automate trading operations in the secondary bond market, with the launch of the new functionality planned by the end of the year.
BSE Board Chairman Ruslan Khalilov told Trend’s correspondent, in response to a question, that the new functionality will allow investors to buy and sell bonds on the secondary market automatically through their brokers.
“Until now, in both the primary and secondary bond markets, each investor has had to approach a brokerage company and place an order. The brokerage company then buys or sells the required amount of bonds based on that order. What we are talking about is simply automating the same operation. The new functionality in the exchange trading system will allow each investor to automatically buy and sell bonds traded on the secondary market through a broker,” Khalilov said.
According to him, the rules for calculating the “clean price” and “dirty price” of bonds under the new system have also been agreed with market participants.
“We discussed these issues with members of the Azerbaijan Capital Market Association and brokerage companies. The negotiations have now been completed. Based on the common rules agreed upon by market participants, we have commissioned a vendor company to develop the functionality. Its development, full testing and delivery will take about three months. We plan to have it delivered by the end of the year,” the BSE chairman said.
Khalilov also said that trading volumes of shares on the secondary market are at a satisfactory level.
“Trading is taking place on the secondary market. In the ‘Market Watch’ section, you can see the secondary-market volumes for both PASHA Bank and International Bank of Azerbaijan. Currently, the turnover ratio of the secondary market relative to free-float shares is by no means low. It is quite good. Market-making organizations are also supporting this,” he said.
The BSE chairman also noted growing interest from foreign companies in Azerbaijan’s capital market.
“Recently, investor demand relative to placement volumes has increased significantly compared with previous years. For example, if you compare bond issuances by other banks with Ziraat Bank’s issuances in previous years, in earlier periods only 10-15 investors, mostly institutional ones, showed interest in such volumes. The measures being implemented in automation, digitalization and financial literacy are beginning to produce results. There is considerable interest,” Khalilov said.
According to him, this interest is also beginning to be reflected on the issuer side.
“Foreign companies are showing interest in the Azerbaijani market and are contacting us. For now, this is at the information exchange and preparation stage. However, there are no companies that have submitted a specific application yet,” the BSE chairman said.
