Post Trade Norway
In September, we were one of the initiators of the first Post Trade Norway seminar that was held in Oslo. It was apparent that the market wanted a seminar like that as it was soon fully booked. Consequently, we have concluded that there will be a seminar next year, too.
SIBOS
National legislation and regulations have until now formed the basis for VPS’ operations. This will, however, be changing now that a common European legislation has been passed and will be implemented in Norwegian law. In recent years we have also seen a globalisation of the securities market, and in addition to our Norwegian and Nordic customers, we have increased the number of international issuers, investors and settlement participants.
As a result, it is increasingly important for us to be updated on international issues. We therefore participated at the SIBOS Conference on 12- 15 October. The conference is organized by SWIFT and it is the leading networking event in the global financial community. Topics such as development and cooperation in the areas of payments, securities, cash management and trade are discussed. We benefited greatly from being present at the conference, and in addition to attending interesting speeches held by key players in the industry, we took the opportunity to arrange meetings with both existing and potentially new customers.
Den store Aksjekvelden
Every year we are hosting Den store Aksjekvelden together with AksjeNorge. This year, we experienced record attendance in Tromsø, Trondheim and Bergen, and we are therefore very anxious to see how Oslo and Stavanger will turn out. We hope that you will have the possibility to attend one of the remaining Aksjeveldene, which has a separate cover in this newsletter.
Regional Meetings
VPS’ customers are spread throughout Norway. In order to gather customers and inform about new and improved services, we organise annual regional meetings. This year’s meetings will be held in November and December in the cities of Bergen, Oslo and Trondheim. Going forward, it is very important to have a constructive dialogue with all customers, particularly in connection with VPS 2.0, our renewal programme, which of course will be one of the main topics on the agenda of the regional meetings.
As a closing remark, I would like to say
VPS has earlier this year experienced an impaired settlement rate, which we communicated to the market this summer, inviting the settlement participant to render their comments. I am very pleased that the participants have responded to our concern in a way that has improved the settlement rate significantly in recent months.
Sincerely yours,
John-Arne Haugerud
Chief Executive Officer
