Amsterdam Update - Spring 96 - First Companies Apply for Remote Membership

Remote membership of the Amsterdam Exchanges NV will bring benefits all round, according to UBS, the first of several companies expected to apply for membership. "The main benefits will be availability of information and the ability to deal immediately for our clients," says Gordon Baker, Head of Business Development (Equities Division) at the London base of securities house UBS.

"We'll have complete access to the order books and AIDA. And although ASSET is widely available through Reuters, the ability to see the patterns of trade throughout the day is vital to us for best execution," he says.

Business benefits
He believes that ultimately, remote membership will lead to an increase in business for UBS. "Our main aim is to serve our American and UK based clients with Pan European products. We're a client-led organisation and we'll be able to offer a better service."

Till now UBS has used Dutch brokers to trade between 70% and 80% of its Dutch share transactions on the Amsterdam Exchanges NV. That should change once the company's application for full membership is accepted. "The brokers in Amsterdam will still have information we can use," says Gordon Baker, "but we'll be doing most of the trading ourselves."

"We're choosing to become members in the places our clients are dealing the most," he adds. Amsterdam is the company's fourth largest centre of trading in Europe.

More to come

In addition to UBS, other London based firms are also investigating becoming members of the Amsterdam Exchanges NV. There are already 18 London firms that are special corporate members of the Exchange who are allowed to trade Dutch bonds from the UK. With their experience of the bond market, it is likely that several of them will want to apply for remote membership to deal in Dutch equities.

For further information on the Amsterdam Exchanges NV, please contact; Thom Hoedemakers, Director of Communications, Amsterdam Exchanges NV, Buersplein 5, 1012 JW Amsterdam, Netherlands, Tel: +31 20 523 4014, Fax: +31 20 523 4950, or enter text search 'Amsterdam Exchanges NV' and 'Business Monitor'.

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