Bogotá — In the first half of 2025, Colombia, Peru and Chile will launch a single stock market after many years of talking about this project as something that was desired but not easy to achieve.
Juan Pablo Cordoba Garces, CEO of Nuam Exchange, spoke to Bloomberg Línea about how the company that resulted from the integration of the three bourses is progressing and why the possibility of a single market is on track to be successful.
“In the first half of 2025 we are targeting the stock market. We will be able to buy any security from the other markets as if it were a local operation, that is, an investor located in any of the three countries will have access to all available shares, but more importantly, they will be able to do so without having to learn anything new, as if it were a local operation”, said Córdoba, who emphasized that the idea of a single market is more a short-term plan than a medium or long term one.
Córdoba said the first step to achieve the single market was the integration of the stock exchanges of the three countries, and which has already been completed, and maintains that this milestone has awakened “great interest not only in the local markets, but also among foreigners”.
“The supply of value in equities is overwhelming, both locally and for foreigners, and there is a lot of interest among foreigners in how attractive the region becomes with an integrated market. For example, those who already go to Brazil like the idea of having another market in which to make riskier decisions, and it is convenient for Brazil that it is not only them, but that there are more markets”.
Córdoba, who for almost 20 years headed the Colombian Stock Exchange, explains that after achieving a single stock market in 2025 it will be possible to begin to evaluate its success in order to think about the next steps toward a fully integrated capital market.
“The other two markets will depend a lot on the demand for the product from investors and intermediaries. The derivatives market would be good, if we are going to have a common index it would be desirable to have an ETF of the common index, a future of that index, etc., but it will depend on whether there are investors that follow a common index, if there are not, then those products would not have liquidity.”
The ultimate goal, he says, is to be able to offer any type of security from any of the three countries through the same ecosystem, “we will have a technological and operational infrastructure that will allow us to offer any asset in an integrated platform”.
Regarding what needs to happen to achieve such a market in 2025, Córdoba explains that “the receptiion has been very good. The fact that the integration and the change of ownership has already been approved gives it a lot of credibility and this has generated a lot of interest both in the three countries and abroad”.
He added that, “in the traditional business, the proposal is to build a single market and a single value chain. It requires us to provide the technology and the operating regulations, and it requires discussions with market participants because it has to be an offer that generates value for them, and we are finalizing the planning for this”.
In Córdoba’s opinion, the relationship with regulators and supervisors is very good and fluid, and there is also
a good reception of the final objective.
“There is a very good dialogue with the regulators of the three countries, the business continues to be supervised and monitored in the three countries. The construction of an integrated market has to be done hand in hand with the regulators, changes are required in the three countries, although they are not complex or legal changes, they do require specific modifications in order to move forward,” said Nuam’s CEO.
He adds, however, that despite having a common objective, relations with the regulator are done bilaterally and not with the three regulators simultaneously.
“What needs to be changed in each country is different, and in a conversation we had last year they expressed their agreement with the point of arrival, but they told us that the preference is for the conversation to be with each one separately, and that is because the vision is shared, but the needs are different in each country and that is why the dialogue is separate,” he said.
He explained that in the case of the supervisors, they have signed a memorandum of understanding and the idea is that the tripartite work between them will continue.
One of the big issues for the single market is how to harmonize the rules governing each market, and it was believed that the tax issue could become an obstacle to achieve it, but Córdoba explains that “it is not a necessary condition to have tax harmony, there are some things that are desirable, but not mandatory. We are going to unify the rules for the operation of markets, listings, trading, clearing, settlement and custody, so that in the three countries we have the same regulations, timetable, the same criteria for auctions, the same percentage of volatility, etc., all this will be unified, other rules are beyond the scope of the integrated market.
However, he said that in some cases there will be differences that the authorities will evaluate if it is convenient or not to harmonize, our commitment is to suggest when we see an issue in which it is convenient to harmonize so that there is no loss of competitiveness in any of the 3three countries”.ies”.es”.s”.”.