KASE from July 1 stops composing activity rankings for KASE members operating in currencies market and abandons annual awarding of members most active there

/KASE, June 30, 11/ - As was informed earlier, following a decision of Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE) Management Board dated June 27, 2011 the revised edition of KASE internal document "Rules of Annual Rewarding the Most Distinguished Members of Kazakhstan Stock Exchange" (Rules) has been approved, with the effective date set at July 1, 2011. The Rules' new edition removes the nomination "Exchange Currency Market Leader". Further, KASE Management Board on June 27 this year decided to stop composing activity rankings for KASE members operating in the currencies market (except for ranking on currency swap transactions). In KASE specialists' justified opinion, over the past several years traders of several banks have been taking various actions in the exchange currencies market for the purpose of increasing their ranking. Such actions include, for example, automatic splitting (through using of special software) of large orders into orders of the smallest scale possible in an attempt to increase the number of deals concluded, carrying out counter-directed contractual transactions with partners in order to increase the gross turnover in case of zero net turnover. In spite of the fact that such actions do not affect the fixing of the exchange rate for any currency to tenge, their mere presence speaks about unfair competition used by some banks. The Exchange has many a time changed the methodology of calculating indicators of its members' activity in the foreign currencies market attempting to minimize the impact of said actions on the bank's position in the ranking. However, every such attempt brought about a response from unfair traders, eventually leading to KASE refusing to compose and publish such rankings. [2011-06-30]