Market infrastructure - Italy
Institutions and organisation
Stock Exchange - Borsa Italiana (www.borsaitaliana.it)
Founded in 1997 following the privatisation of the exchange, the Borsa Italiana Group is made up of five companies - Borsa Italiana, Blt Systems, Piazza Affari, Cassa di Compensazione e Garanzia (CC&G) and Monte Titoli - and has been operating since January 1998.
The responsibilities of the Borsa Italiana are as follows:
- Defining and organising how the markets perform their functions;
- Defining rules and procedures for admission and listing on the market for issuing companies and brokers;
- Managing and overseeing the market;
- Supervising the listed companies’ disclosure requirements.
The Borsa Italiana’s primary objective is to ensure the development of the managed markets, maximising their liquidity, transparency and competitiveness and at the same time pursuing high levels of efficiency and profitability.
Stockholders of the Borsa Italiana include the principal Italian banks as well as domestic and international institutional investors.
Blt Systems S.p.A. is responsible for the management, maintenance and development of the Borsa Italiana Group’s information systems.
CC&G (www.ccg.it) is responsible for managing the Central Counterparty (CCP) System and the Guarantee Funds for contracts and settlement.
CSD - Monte Titoli (www.montetitoli.it)
Monte Titoli was founded in 1978 as a trust company and since 1986 has been the Italian Central securities Depository for all Italian financial instruments (including, since 2000, Italian government bonds) currently centralised at the company almost exclusively in dematerialised form.
In November 2000, Monte Titoli launched EXPRESS, the gross basis securities settlement service. EXPRESS II, its new clearing and settlement platform integrating the current gross basis functionality with multilateral netting in a single environment, has been operating since December 2003.
Monte Titoli handles the daily matching and routing service X-TRM (formerly RRG-NET/RRG-REL) in support of the net/gross settlement of Express II.
In December 2002, Monte Titoli became part of the Italian Exchange Group, following Borsa Italiana’s bid, which increased its shareholding to 98.77% of Monte Titoli capital.
Central Bank - Banca d'Italia (www.bancaditalia.it)
Banca d’Italia was founded in 1893 upon the authorisation of the merger of Banca Nazionale nel Regno, Banca Nazionale Toscana and Banca Toscana di Credito per le Industrie e il Commercio d’Italia. In 1926, Banca d’Italia became the sole institution authorised to issue banknotes in Italy.
One of the main functions of Banca d'Italia is the supervision of the payment system and the provision of settlement services: Banca d'Italia operates Italy's interbank payment circuit, which consists of a clearing system for low-value transactions (BI-COMP) and a real-time gross cash settlement system for large transactions (BI-REL).
Other key functions of the Banca d’Italia are as follows:
- Issuance of banknotes;
- Monetary and exchange rate policy;
- Banking and financial supervision;
- Market supervision;
- International commitments;
- Economic analysis and publication of economic data.
Regulatory structure
The basic financial regulatory framework is defined by the 1998 Code of Provisions on the Financial Intermediation and the rules governing the adoption of the Euro by the Italian law of 1998.
The responsibilities of the regulatory bodies are as follows:
- Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa (CONSOB) (www.consob.it):
- surveillance of regulated markets and the fairness and transparency of the intermediaries' professional behaviour;
- correctness of information on newly issued securities released to potential investors;
- supervision of the securities settlement systems (together with Banca d'Italia).
- Banca d'Italia
- supervision of the risk exposure and capital adequacy and transparency of intermediaries;
- surveillance of the government bond wholesale markets;
- supervision of the securities settlement systems (together with CONSOB).