New market rules for MTS Italy

We would like to inform you that the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance has approved the new version of the MTS Rules for the Government Bonds Electronic Wholesale Market, which includes both the Cash market ("MTS Italy") and the Repo market. The Rules were previously approved by the MTS Board of Directors and Shareholders’ meeting and were presented to the Market Committee in December 2011.

The new Rules and the new Instructions, available here, will come into force on Monday, 14 May 2012.

The Rules and Instructions have been updated following the coming into force of new laws and regulations and have been harmonised, where feasible, with the other markets managed by the MTS Group.

In summary the main changes introduced are: 

a) monitoring of market making activity now based on relative evaluation as fixed bid/offer spreads no longer apply;  

b) formalisation of the Mid-price and Striker functionality:

c) revision of the unilateral cancellation rules to accomodate the latest AFME recommendation.

Please note that for consistency reasons as of 14 May 2012 the Unilateral Cancellation rules, as amended for MTS Italy and the Repo market, will be applicable also to those markets managed by EuroMTS Ltd.