The Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) started successfully trading on its new automated trading system (ATS) on Monday 6 July and volumes were picking up during the week. This is a long-awaited change as the stock exchange moved away from call over and paper-based systems.
ZSE CEO Alban Chirume and a couple of Zimbabwean stockbrokers confirmed to AfricanCapitalMarketsNews that was working well. Monday had started slowly, as expected, but once orders were being matched successfully and there were no problems, volumes seemed to up on Tuesday and today (8 July). Chirume described it as a “major transformation” for the ZSE, founded in 1896. Stockbrokers were upbeat, saying their clients local and international had been waiting for this.
There was a false start on 3 July, originally announced as the launch day, when the “close coupling” linkage between the ATS and the settlement system gave some teething problems. This was resolved by Monday and the settlement system seemed to be working well after that.
The news comes as a relief to brokers and dealers, who can now trade from their own offices and do not need to spend time travelling to the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange building. Earlier this year the ZSE had moved out of its city-centre office and into its own premises.
Chirume said the ZSE staff were cheering as the first trade went through.
The ATS is supplied by InfoTech Middle East LLC and the settlement is run by Chengetedzai Depository Company Ltd, which is using Depo/X system supplied by CMA Small Systems from Sweden to run the central securities depository (CSD). The only securities which can now be traded are those which have been dematerialized, which means that paper share certificates have been replaced by dematerialized entries on the CSD computer. However, all the ZSE shares are now dematerialized apart from Border, which is under judicial management.