The UK's Plus Markets group has entered into an agreement with the Munich Stock Exchange to develop a new pan-European trading platform for small and mid-cap stocks.
The proposed quote-driven service, to be known as 'Plus-Europe', will take advantage of the pan-European passport rights afforded to Bayerische Börse AG under MiFID. The partners say the platform will apply MiFID-compliant standards of transparency and market surveillance and will be fully accessible to market participants based in London via their existing systems and connectivity providers.
In its preliminary results announcement in April, Plus committed to offer full AIM stock coverage on its markets before the end of 2008, although it is still awaiting regulatory approval from the FSA. The company says Plus-Europe will provide an alternative mechanism for trading AIM securities through the German regulatory environment.
The agreement is subject to various pre-conditions, including the conclusion of definitive legal agreements and the finalisation of the regulatory structure of Plus-Europe.
Plus describes the non-binding agreement as the first of a number of partner-driven initiatives which it is pursuing as it bids to internationalise its markets by offering routes to listing in London.