Nasdaq, SSI Creating Infrastructure for Japan, European Exchanges

The Nasdaq Stock Market Tuesday formed a joint venture
with an India-based technology company to create the infrastructure for its
upcoming expansions.

Nasdaq and SSI Technologies, a subsidiary of SSI Ltd., formed a joint
venture dubbed IndigoMarkets
which is chartered to create the Net-based trading and market system for
Nasdaq’s global efforts. The first two markets to run on the sytems will be
the Nasdaq Europe and the Nasdaq Japan.

Testing for the Nasdaq Japan system is expected to begin in the third
quarter of this year, while no target date was specified for the
Nasdaq-Europe. John Hilley, chairman and chief executive officer of Nasdaq
International, Ltd., said that the Nasdaq-Europe launch is expected to
follow shortly upon the opening of the Nasdaq-Japan. Both exchanges are
expected to be operational by the end of the year.

The venture’s portfolio of offerings will include Nasdaq market structure
mainstays, including order- and quote-driven services, and access to third
market trading. Access to IPOs will also play a role in the creation of the
new system.

“Our new joint venture with SSIT represents another important step in our
strategy of building on our position as the worlds leading global stock
market,” said Hilley. “It underlines our determination that the new
Nasdaq-Europe and Nasdaq-Japan markets will be based on the very best
state-of-the-art technology.”

SSIT will create a center in Chennai, India, to support IndigoMarkets as an
off-shore partner.

The Nasdaq-Japan exchange was announced last year, but in December the
target date for its launch was moved up by six months following the opening
of the Mothers exchange in Tokyo. The Osaka Stock Exchange will provide
interim system support.

Nasdaq-Europe was announced in November and is the creation of a venture
between Softbank, News Corp.’s epartners VC fund, and Vivendi’s Viventures Capital.