South Africa’s youngest stock exchange A2X Markets on Tuesday reached its R2-trillion market capitalisation mark, recording more than 29 000 trades in the last two years.

A2X launched in October 2017 with three listings and four of the industry’s leading brokers on board.

After two years, the exchange now boasts nine approved brokers, including five of the six largest brokers in South Africa.

The latest listing on the exchange by Fairvest Property Holdings on October 31 brought the number of listings on the exchange to 32.

A2X was further named “best new stock exchange in Africa” in the 2019 Global Banking & Finance Awards.

CEO Kevin Brady commented in a statement that one of the major challenges that the exchange had faced was broker infrastructure, which was inadequate for a multivenue environment.

“Integrating into legacy systems geared for a single exchange environment is challenging. However, we are pleased to report that many brokers are re-engineering their systems as they see the value of doing so and the problems of being tied to only one exchange.

“To help overcome many of the infrastructure obstacles, A2X has a joint venture with a local tech firm to develop a post trade system. This will make it both cost effective and easy to trade client orders across both markets. The system is being rolled out to select brokers and is expected to be in full production by the first quarter of next year,” said Brady.

He also highlighted the benefits for issuers and traders of trading on A2X, stating that a secondary listing on A2X complemented an issuer’s primary listing, providing investors with a choice of venue on which to transact and a lower-cost venue.

“The pipeline of potential companies listing is strong and we are pleased at the high-quality, high-profile companies which have and are considering listing.

“We were clear from inception that the A2X model aligns with the objective of growing and improving the overall market in South Africa – lowering costs, improving liquidity and being both innovative and responsive to market needs,” he added.