Working Group 4

Working Group 4: WG4 (Emerging ANNA Members)

The first meeting of the "Emerging ANNA Members Working Group-WG4"; was held on April 7th, 2000 in Istanbul and hosted by Takasbank (ISE Settlement and Custody Bank Inc.).

The "Emerging ANNA Members" meeting was set to the last day of the FIBV Global Emerging Markets Conference. The WG4 delegates did also have the chance to attend the Clearing and Settlement Panel and the closing session of the FIBV Conference. The first meeting of the WG4 was a good chance for all the delegates to present information on their market practices related to securities services and to listen to and learn from each other in this respect. Delegates from Greece, Romania, Egypt. Tunisia, Germany, Taiwan, Croatia. Iran and Turkey, in turn, presented information related to their markets’ trading, clearing, settlement. safekeeping and custody practices, as well as ISIN related information. Cypriot delegates invited the WG4 members to the ANNA General Meeting that will be held in Nicosia, 25-26 May 2000.

All of the five attendants of the March 1999 meeting (then task force of Emerging Members), were present at this first meeting of the Working Group. This was particularly supportive and encouraging for the WG4 meeting. The number of attendants was doubled compared to the Task Force meeting. 10 ANNA members which is one sixth of the total members was an important number for a Working Group meeting. Participation of countries from Western Europe. South East Europe. North Africa. Middle East and Far East, provided a wide geographical coverage for the meeting.

One of the missions of WG4, is to provide a platform for exchange of ideas, thoughts and information on individual market practices, which helps the emerging ANNA members to get to know each other much better and leads them to further co-operation. Besides all the exchange of information and development of ideas for future co-operation, the meeting was specifically important for the discussion on extending the GIAM II membership. The reasons preventing the emerging ANNA members were tried to be figured out, and solution proposals were developed. Upon the request of the WG4 delegates. Uwe Meyer presented information on the current stage of GIAM project. He mentioned that only half of the ANNA members are GIAM members and the number of members should increase for the success of GIAM. Delegates mentioned the related costs as one of the important obstacles in front of the emerging ANNA members to be a member of the GIAM system. Normally, emerging ANNA members do not search for the foreign securities ISINs, as they are mainly concerned with domestic securities. As they do not receive ISINs from GIAM system in practice, they step behind because of the costs, although they are willing to provide their ISINs to the GIAM system.

As the resolution, WG4 members proposed that the services of GIAM could be separated; SIN submission could be free for all the members, and only those members who look for other markets ISINs could pay for this service. This would promote the GIAM system, extend the number of member NNAs which will create a broader and much more valuable database of ISIN records. It was also suggested that marketing of GIAM should be carried out more effectively to increase the number of Data Vendors (customers of GIAM) in order to increase the revenues of GIAM.

The report of the WG4 Meeting was submitted to the General Meeting in Nicosia, May 2000. Members debated the issue of whether and in one circumstance to supply GIAM free of charge and drafted the following recommendation: "W54 requests that the ANNA Board of Directors establish a solution for the next twelve months only regarding a free data input facility to GIAM to non-members of GIAM by 30 June 2000. The members voted in favour of this Recommendation.

As a result, as announced at the Extraordinary General Meeting in Brussels. October 2000, a newly structured GIAM facility called "GIAM Lite Service is planned to be provided free to all ANNA Members by January 2001, provided that they accept to input their new/update/delete ISINs on a daily basis.

The convenor of W54 is very pleased to comment that studies of W54 commenced with a successful meeting and solid results have been taken in a rather short time. The extended membership to GIAM provided by the "GIAM Lite Service", will, in turn, facilitate an efficient ISIN collection and disseminations process, and prove the willingness and dedication of all ANNA members for their contribution to the current global projects such as STR and shorter settlement cycles in the international financial markets.