SECOND RELEASE OF TRADING AND CLEARING ASTS+ FOR STOCK MARKET TO BE PUT INTO OPERATION AS OF AUGUST 3

30.07.20 17:32
/KASE, July 30, 2020/ – Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE or the Exchange) announces that the second release of the trading and clearing system ASTS+ (hereinafter, ASTS+) for the stock market will be put into operation as of August 3, 2020. From that date, all financial instruments of the stock market will be traded in ASTS+. In the trading system, which currently operates on the stock market (the ACT), trading of financial instruments of the stock market will be closed, except for the possibility to settle closing repo transactions that were opened in the ACT before the launch date of the second release of ASTS+. We remind that the transfer of trading in financial instruments of KASE stock market from the current trading system to ASTS+ will be done in stages. Starting December 3, 2019 (first stage) in ASTS+, trading is held: - shares, securities of investment funds, ETFs - with settlements in tenge; - Eurobonds, depositary receipts - with settlements in U.S. dollars. In total, 266 financial instruments (174 issues of securities and 92 automatic repo instruments) were transferred to ASTS during the first phase. Eurobonds with settlements in tenge and other financial instruments of the stock market, including repo market instruments, were traded in the ACT until August 3. From August 3, 620 financial instruments will be transferred to ASTS+, including 469 issues of securities in the stock market buy/sell sector and 151 instruments of the automatic repo market. At the same time, 178 financial instruments will be traded with settlements T+2. The average daily trading volume of all instruments that will be available in ASTS+ amounts to KZT411.5 billion (KZT27.3 billion on the stock market and KZT384.3 billion for automatic repo operations). From this date, the Exchange will act as a central counterparty on the stock market for all transactions with all securities, except for repo transactions with a number of financial instruments settled on a gross basis - for each individual transaction. All transactions with the central counterparty will be cleared on a net basis by determining net positions of clearing members for their execution during settlement clearing sessions. The Exchange as a central counterparty for such transactions will guarantee their execution. Thus, netting of positions of participants in all types of stock market transactions, including buy/sell and repo sectors will be introduced in the organized market of the Republic of Kazakhstan for the first time. This will significantly improve efficiency of liquidity management of the Exchange members and will lead to the reduction of their transaction costs. Settlements in money on transactions with a central counterparty KASE will carry out independently using a correspondent account in the Central Securities Depository. The Central Securities Depository remains the settlement organization for securities on all transactions concluded at KASE, which will be conducted without participation of a central counterparty, in money and in securities. Relevant amendments have been made to internal documents of KASE and new internal documents have been developed, which will be put into effect as of August 3, 2020 due to the launch of the second release of ASTS+. These documents are available on the KASE website in section "The Rules for ASTS+" at http://kase.kz/en/kase_rules_asts/ In the same section, there are answers to frequently asked questions about work with the trading and clearing system ASTS+ http://kase.kz/files/mix/faq_asts.pdf A press release on the event will be published on the KASE website shortly in the "Press Releases" section - http://kase.kz/en/press_releases/ [2020-07-30]