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idea of a European Wholesale Market.
Now, I think it fair to say that the principle I advanced is now accepted wisdom throughout Europe.
I am even more convinced today of the need for a European market place, in which the major companies can expect to raise equity capital on fine terms, and in which the shares of those companies can be traded efficiently, and with the level of liquidity which is required today by major international investors.
The imminence of the European Single Market, and the hugely exciting agreement recently reached on the European Economic Area only add urgency. At a time when companies, investors, and intermediaries all increasingly see themselves as international and in an international context, it is time for stock exchanges also to see themselves in a similar light.
The new international market place we envisage should be joined by all the major securities houses in other European financial centres, participating directly as full members of the market. The rules of that market should be devised and enforced by practitioners from other financial centres in Europe as well as
London.
Currently, our international market does not deal in the shares of the many British companies which are internationally traded and indeed which themselves trade internationally. We intend that the wholesale market for these companies should form an important element of our international market. ICI will be traded alongside Bayer and Hoechst, and BP and Shell alongside Petrofina.
The international market itself should continue to be regulated on an appropriate basis for professionals and institutional investors; it may be that the level of regulation needed to protect private individuals dealing in United Kingdom stocks in our national market will have to differ somewhat.
I shall be explaining our thinking over the next few months to regulators and exchanges throughout Europe, in the belief that on this basis we can indeed build a truly European market place for European business and industry.
Settlement
It is not only in the provision of trading services that we have work to do. The improvement of settlement services for UK equities is of course also high on our agenda. It was with great reluctance that we recently announced an extension to the time-table for the implementation of Taurus.
I fully understand the impatience with which many of our market users regard this further delay. Taurus is a long and difficult project on a massive scale. Not the least of our difficulties has been the construction of an appropriate legal and regulatory
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