OREANDA-NEWS. February 8, 2008. The National Depository Center (NDC), Russia’s only settlement depository servicing the full range of Russian securities, today issued a report on an NDC-organized conference on international securities. More than 200 market participants, representing a wide array of companies and organizations, attended the conference. One of the key topics was the expanded circulation and recording of foreign financial instruments on the Russian stock market and the procedures for their qualification as securities. Among the participants in the discussion were representatives of the Federal Financial Markets Service (FFMS), MICEX CJSC, MICEX Stock Exchange, NDC, NAUFOR, the central depositories of the CIS countries, global custodians, major banks and leading investment companies. The Association of Eurasian Central Securities Depositories (AECSD) was a conference partner; The Professional Association of Registrars, Transfer Agents and Depositories (PARTAD) and Depositarium magazine were the information partners for the conference.

Nikolai Egorov, Director, NDC, said in his opening address: “Accepting the globalization of securities markets as a fact, we realize that expanding the list of foreign securities admitted for circulation in the Russian Federation will increase the attractiveness of domestic infrastructure. And this consequently will lead to increased market liquidity in Russia. Clarity of the procedure for the qualification of securities in accordance with Russian legislation is a necessary precondition for securities circulation and recording in the stock market. Such a procedure has been provided in a timely manner by the regulator. To date NDC has received and processed requests for qualification as securities more than 6,000 financial instruments issued by foreign issuers. Out of these, around 2,500 instruments correspond with FFMS requirements. Approximately 1,285 instruments do not correspond with the requirements; most of these (1,035) are represented by depository receipts. More than 2,000 instruments do not have a CFI code as it is a new standard in the world. We are actively cooperating with our foreign colleagues in order to speed up the procedure of code assignment for such instruments. Once we understand the statistics and needs of market participants we can all jointly work on improving operational processes and circulation and recording procedures with foreign issuers’ securities. NDC as a participant in the Association of National Numerating Agencies can easily help banks, brokers and managing companies to interact with national numerating agencies of other countries in the course of qualification of foreign issuers’ financial instruments as securities. We have already received a number of requests for such services.”

Reports were presented at the conference relating to operations with foreign securities, including the securities of CIS companies, to the peculiarities of recording rights for foreign securities, to disclosure of information of foreign securities and corporate actions, to difficulties and peculiarities of operations with foreign securities and to prospects for the attraction of foreign securities to the Russian stock market.