Top executives of New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) Euronext and the Tokyo Stock Exchange met Tuesday in New York to discuss plans to link their trading networks for easier cross-border and global stock market trades.

Atsushi Saito, president and chief executive of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, met NYSE Euronext Duncan Niederauer in New York to "sign a letter of intent to identify options to give customers of each exchange accessibility to the other's markets through a network linkage," a joint statement said.

The market operators said the planned NYSE trading platform dubbed "arrownet" would allow to link the two trading platforms without costly dedicated network connections.

"Customers of both exchanges could take advantage of this multi-functional network to translate order formats and so avoid the need for costly development work," they added.

"Market data would also be available over the network. Both parties would also explore the potential of jointly expanding the network linkage to Asia, which would enable investors to more easily trade cross-borders and globally."

Niederauer said the pair was seeking to "leverage our technology and expertise to create a global trading community with direct access to the world's foremost markets."

The plan could "give the investors of Europe and US more opportunities for investment in Asia, and at the same time, Asian markets will have exposure to capital outside of the region," Saito said.

The news came just weeks after Deutsche Boerse and NYSE Euronext announced a merger that would span two continents to create the world's biggest exchange by revenues and a powerhouse in derivatives trading.

channelnewsasia.com