As part of the efforts of the Securities and Commodities Authority (SCA) to upgrade and develop the performance of financial markets, through the exchange of expertise with developed financial markets, HE Dr. Obaid Al Zaabi, Acting CEO of the SCA, received Mr. Edward Knight, Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Nasdaq, and Faycal Belyazid, Senior Sales Executive of Nasdaq’s Market Technology - Middle East and Africa. The two parties discussed ways to enhance mutual cooperation aiming to develop and exchange experiences in the financial services industry between the UAE financial markets and Nasdaq.
The meeting addressed the financial market conditions in both the UAE and the United States and the nature of regulators’ control over the financial markets. Topics of discussion included areas of cooperation, especially training of financial market workers on developed market techniques, and the development of electronic trading surveillance systems through SMARTS to enhance cooperation between the two sides to improve the performance of local financial markets, especially in developing and updating the electronic control system provided by Nasdaq to the Authority in accordance with the contract between them.
Nasdaq officials have expressed their appreciation of the flexibility and activeness of the financial markets in the UAE and the progress achieved by these markets this year. They noted that the coming period will see further cooperation between the two sides in the areas of training and technical support.
It is noteworthy that the head office of Nasdaq, the first electronic trading platform in the world, is located in New York City in the United States. Nasdaq is home to more than 3,700 listed companies with a market value of approximately $9.6 trillion and over 17,000 corporate clients Nasdaq also owns SMARTS , which is the most widely deployed surveillance systems in the world. It is used by about 50 market places and regulators and 100 brokerage firms in 40 countries around the world.
The system is the industry benchmark for real-time and T1 solutions for market surveillance, supervision and compliance. It can provide numerically and graphically illustrated data direct from the capital markets to the regulators, in conjunction with warning messages issued by the program, which provides a financial controller with the data that helps him analyze the different types of manipulation cases. The program also helps the controller to chronically analyze the pattern and performance of investors to ensure the soundness of trades.