Jamaica Stock Exchange

8 Business View Caribbean As far back as 1998, we have had an electronic trading platform. So, the days of the ‘open outcry’ are gone for us. So, you have an electronic trading platform, which is separate and apart from allowing persons to trade online. Because when you trade online, you’re going through an established broker, right? Yes, you still are going through an established broker. And I’m happy that you know that, because so many times, people believe that online trading means that an investor connects directly to an exchange – which they don’t. Without the ‘open outcry,’ I imagine that the Ex- change is kind of a quiet place to work. It looks quiet, but because we are doing so many things - building on our current platform - the Stock Exchange is not very ‘quiet.’ We are building out our trustee, our registration, our repo business where we are acting as the trustee for the government’s Repur- chase Agreement. We are also developing a market for Jamaica Depository receipts, so by the end of the first half of 2016, we will be launching that market. And so, we continue to look at opportunities and to look at what may interest our investors or member/dealers. Anything that is compatible, or could be of interest to our investors, we look at and see whether it is some- thing that we will pursue. How many employees are doing all of this work? In the Exchange Group, we have somewhere in the re- gion of 80 employees. What are some of the Exchange’s long-term plans? What significant objectives would you like to see achieved over the next, say, five years? Looking down the road, you would see us being the platform for the trading of government securities, be- cause we don’t currently trade government bonds; you would see us being the one-stop-shop for all things se- curities, so you would be seeing options - right now we’re not trading options, so you would see an options market; you would also see us trying to facilitate the government in the area of foreign exchange trading. What we see ourselves as is a company that will pro- vide financial services, not only for Jamaica, but for the wider region, so we’re looking internationally for persons to see opportunities and come to our market for its benefits. In the United States, a criticism of the SEC, the mar- kets’ regulatory agency, is that it is sometimes seen as being prone to political pressures - that it suc- cumbs to the ideology of the whatever administra- tion is in power and, thus, is not an ‘honest broker.’ If the government in Jamaica changes does that af- fect the regulatory landscape, there? No, we don’t have that here. We have continuity. There might be a change in emphasis, but definitely not one of quality. We are governed by the Securities Act, and even though we have had a change in government, we are not expecting any change that would be inconsis- tent with our financial services laws and regulations. I have been at the Stock Exchange for 16 years, so I’ve seen a few changes in government and our Securities Act has withstood all of that. Now that our time is almost up, what are some of the most important points that you would like our read- ers to take away from this conversation?