Jamaica stock exchange

JAMAICA STOCK EXCHANGE

FINDING DIGITAL STABILITY

SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS MAGAZINE

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INTERVIEW: JAMAICA STOCK EXCHANGE

FINDING

DIGITAL STABILITY

Sustainable Business Magazine speaks with Marlene Street-Forrest, Managing Director at the Jamaica Stock Exchange, about new technology, supporting financial services education, and weathering the impact of COVID-19 on global markets.

The Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) is Jamaica’s only stock market, with currently 90 companies listed on the Main and Junior Markets representing 109 securities.

The sectors range from finance to manufacturing to communications to retail to insurance to transportation to technology and leisure. In 2015 and 2018, Bloomberg named JSE the world’s best performing stock exchange, helping drive capital

investment in Jamaican businesses and creating opportunities for local investors and business people.

COVID-19 has brought profound challenges to stock markets across the globe. “In 2018, we were the best-performing exchange in the world, and in 2019 we were in the top five,” says Marlene Street Forrest, Managing Director at the Jamaica Stock Exchange. “Obviously, we are not there now, given the fallout that has been experienced from COVID-19.

Though it is a challenging time for us, the bedrock of our market remains presenting a fair, efficient, and transparent stock exchange.

Regardless of whether we are in good times or bad, our framework and rules are upheld to ensure that investors can have full confidence in the stock exchange.”

UPDATED PLATFORM When Sustainable Business Magazine last spoke to JSE, in early 2019, the stock exchange had recently celebrated their 50th anniversary. (See Sustainable Business Magazine 03/19 for the full feature.) Since then, JSE has continued to develop their technological infrastructure. In December

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INTERVIEW: JAMAICA STOCK EXCHANGE

“TO ENSURE WE’RE WELL-EQUIPPED FOR THIS PERIOD, WE HAVE STARTED WITH THE IMPROVEMENT OF OUR CYBER SECURITY AND THE RISK MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK, IN ORDER TO ENSURE THAT THE STOCK EXCHANGE IS RESILIENT AND SUSTAINABLE”

2019, JSE migrated to the Nasdaq Matching Engine and Nasdaq Market Surveillance systems, improving JSE’s ability to manage trading functions and using data from a variety of sources to detect any market abuse. “We migrated to the Nasdaq trading and surveillance platform in order to improve stability and growth,” says Mrs. Street Forrest. “We also feel that, as the stock exchange grows, you need to have more electronic tools allowing for alerts to give the regulator and the oversight division further assistance in looking at what is happening in the market. We also made some enhancements to our online trading platform and added new indexing features for the public and the member dealers.”

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SOCIAL INVESTMENT Last year, JSE also launched the Jamaica Social Stock Exchange (JSSE), establishing a new platform to drive investment in the social economy (principally NGOs and social enterprises) in Jamaica. “We believe that social growth contributes to overall market growth,” says Mrs. Street Forrest.

“JSSE is designed to look at the social aspect of the economy, and we have two phases there. In phase one, we are just looking to at how to enhance social enterprise projects through the Jamaica Social Investment Market (JSIM). Meanwhile, in phase two, we will be moving based on the government’s legislation, when that is enacted, to list social entities through the

Jamaica Impact Investment Market (JIIM).

Both markets will operate through the JSSE’s platform.”

In early 2019, we spoke to JSE about their e-Campus, a range of courses offering financial services education from the basics of investing for beginners through to postgraduate degrees and diplomas in financial services management, all accredited by the University Council of Jamaica and the Continuing Professional Development Certification Service. Now, with COVID-19, Ms. Street Forrest sees a heightened urgency to keep these courses and other online resources up and running. “We have upgraded our e-Campus websites,” explains Mrs. Street Forrest. “We believe that, within

this period, people need to be as educated about the market as possible. We increased the number of account holders at the Jamaican Central Securities Depositary (JCSD) by over 100% in less than three years.

Investors saw the market going up and just wanted to come in. So, we felt it was very important that those investors were given a market education, so they understand that markets go up and markets go down, and so that during this period there would be level-headed decision making.”

as a leader in. We consider communication as a key element in rallying the market through these tough times. Consequently, we’ve had several meetings and contacts with our investors to give them as much assurance as we can.”

“Our long-term plan is offering more products and services towards the growth of the exchange,” says Mrs. Street Forrest.

“We continue to look at business content and trading improvements, including at the IT end, because both of those things are

technology-driven. The stock exchange is really looking to make sure that in this age, there is a complete digital transformation.

We are looking at a complete digital transformation, both in terms of what we offer internally to our customers and to the market, and how we can assist our stakeholders especially our member/dealers in achieving this same objective. Ultimately, we want to be the exchange that processes or has an input in the processing of transaction within the capital markets.” c

FOSTERING TRUST JSE have also been improving their mobile app for investors. “With COVID-19, we recognize that quite a number of transactions and operations need to be done in a digital manner,” says Ms. Street Forrest. “To ensure we are well-equipped for this period, we have started with the improvement of our cyber security and the risk management framework, to ensure that the stock exchange is resilient and sustainable. We also built up the JCSD Trustee Services, and on top of that we implemented a fund management system for the trustee division. What this does is provide the back office support, which we see ourselves SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS MAGAZINE

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