First Hong Kong firm connects to Xetra trading system

Celestial Securities, Ltd is the first to connect.

Deutsche Boerse AG said Celestial Securities, Ltd is a subsidiary of Hong Kong-listed financial conglomerate CASH Financial Services Group.

The Xetra network includes more than 240 trading participants with around 4,500 traders in 18 countries. Deutsche Börse noted this is the first time that a trading participant from East Asia has been directly connected to Xetra ("Exchange Electronic Trading").

Celestial Securities now receives direct access to secure and supervised exchange trading in Germany. It has direct access to the reference market for all important German shares.

Due to the time difference between Hong Kong and Frankfurt, participants take part in Xetra trading from 2.00 p.m. to 2.00 a.m. (local time in Hong Kong is CEST+6).

This allows them to react to events in Europe or on the US markets after exchanges have closed in Asia. In Frankfurt, they can now access a broad range of over one million domestic and foreign equities, ETFs and structured products. Securities in Frankfurt, where Xetra is based, are traded in 19 different currencies.

"Xetra trading features the highest level of transparency, fair pricing and strict trading supervision," said Dr Martin Reck, Managing Director Cash Market at Deutsche Börse.