Kazakhstan Stock Exchange Future Outlook

The global financial turmoil challenged local financial infrastructure and revealed weaknesses, but discovered new routes and opportunities. The Kazakhstan Stock Exchange is inspired to promote market integrity, develop technologies, and attract new issuers and investors.

The Exchange intends to upgrade its current deal-to-deal T+0 settlement scheme to a contemporary central counterparty T+N clearing. Currently KASE is developing a framework to calculate and cover risks arising from the extension of the settlement cycle. Scheduled switch to a full pre-delivery T+0 scheme in 2010 will be the first step towards a more comprehensive T+3 clearing system.

Global credit crunch distressed local repo market. In the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009 some lenders were not able to fulfill their repo obligations in a timely manner, adding to a credibility crisis on the local money market. In response KASE tightened repo rules and started to develop a sound risk management system on the money market. This resulted in drastic decrease in the rate of defaults. From August 2009 there were no defaults on KASE . In 2010 KASE plans to introduce a repo mark-to-market system.

The Kazakhstan Stock Exchange is aimed at further expansion of the range of available financial instruments and services rendered. It is planned to launch several currency and equity derivatives in 2010, including dollar rate and KASE Index futures contracts. Others KASE projects include: web-site improvements and real-time data feeding through global market data vendors.

In 2008 – 2009 KASE was active internationally and will continue to cooperate with other exchanges, state agencies, and international organizations to promote Kazakhstan financial market globally. KASE strives to comply with generally accepted international norms and standards.