HONG KONG (Reuters) – Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing will launch a new initial public offering (IPO) settlement platform to improve efficiency by shortening the period between pricing of an IPO and trading of shares to two days, the bourse said on Wednesday.
The platform FINI, or the fast interface for new issuance, which will reduce the settlement period from five days to two days, will be rolled out in October.
IPO sponsors, underwriters, legal advisers, banks, clearing participants, share registrars and regulators will be enabled to collaborate and perform their respective roles in an IPO, digitally on cloud-based FINI, the exchange said.
The platform also has a new public offer pre-funding model designed to help alleviate large sums of funds being locked up in over-subscribed IPOs.
(Reporting by Selena Li; Editing by Sonali Paul)
