Raiffeisen Centrobank (RCB) has entered into an agreement with the Prague Stock Exchange (PSE) in a move to expand its structured certificates product range, securities trading and sales in Central and Eastern Europe.
The Austrian investment bank became a member of the PSE on Wednesday and now has permission to issue structured certificates for the Czech market, as well as to be an active market maker in the Czech blue chips marketplace.
Heike Arbter (pictured), head of structured products at RCB told SRP that the only difference in the bank's certificate issuance via the exchange is that the products will be denominated in the local currency, the Czech koruna, adding that the bank wants to build a liquid secondary market for all the products listed on the PSE.
"These products are going to be tradable on the PSE and therefore we will follow a strategy of assuring the greatest possible liquidity and transparency in trading," she said. "We do not want to only broaden certificates trading; we also want to build up a liquid secondary market."
The agreement to add RCB to the Czech exchange came after the PSE became a member of the CEE Stock Exchange Group last year. The PSE joined the XETRA trading system in November 2012, with the Budapest Stock Exchange as the last one to follow this year.
"Executing trades as a direct member and market maker will allow us to realise significant saving," said Wilhelm Celeda, a member of the executive board at Raiffeisen Centrobank. "This can give us an advantage in the current market which is marked by tight liquidity."
The PSE is the latest exchange to be entered by RCB which is already a member of the Deutsche Börse, Eurex Germany, Scoach Frankfurt, Euwax Stuttgart and the London Stock Exchange as well as the Warsaw Stock Exchange, the Bucharest Stock Exchange and the CEE Stock Exchange Group - which includes the Vienna Stock Exchange, the Budapest Stock Exchange and the Ljubljana Stock Exchange.