Nasdaq OMX Nordic and European Multilateral Clearing Facility have launched a full central counterparty clearing service on the Nasdaq OMX exchanges in Copenhagen, Helsinki and Stockholm.

Beginning today, Nasdaq OMX has introduced mandatory CCP on nine Nordic securities: three Finnish, Swedish and Danish stocks respectively.

The introduction of central counterparty clearing in the Nordic equity markets is part of Nasdaq OMX’s strategy to increase market liquidity by building an open, competitive CCP model in the Nordics.

Nasdaq OMX Nordic and its three CCP partners – EMCF, SIX X-clear and Euro CCP – have further agreed to achieve competitive clearing by January 2010.

Hans-Ole Jochumsen, pesident of Nasdaq OMX Nordic, says: “The Nordic equity markets have taken a quantum leap from bilateral clearing to central counterparty clearing in record time. In a world’s first, we have accomplished this on three markets simultaneously. This is the biggest structural change for the Nordic equity markets since trading became electronic in the early 1990s, and I expect the introduction of CCP to have a similar increasing effect on volumes. The Nordic CCP solution has been designed and implemented in close cooperation with our customers, and I would like to thank them for their commitment and determination to accomplish the fastest CCP implementation in history.”

Jan Booij, chief executive of EMCF, adds: “Today’s launch is a major step closer to achieving greater market liquidity and a competitive CCP model for the Nordic region. We are pleased to be extending our reach in this territory and working in close collaboration with Nasdaq OMX.”