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Martyna Olik: What are your plans for the Warsaw Stock Exchange?

Rainer Riess: Let me start by saying that if you look at Europe, the world of stock exchanges is changing dramatically. [There are] methods that allow markets to competitively trade the stocks of other markets. [Recently] Nasdaq [announced] that they intend to trade Polish blue-chips on their MTF in London and want to compete with the Warsaw Stock Exchange.

So I think that's just one sign that the world of stock exchanges is dramatically changing. At the same time I think the WSE has done a very good job in developing a very well functioning domestic market, with the Polish companies coming to the market and Polish investors being quite active.

Our strategic vision for the WSE is to actually give it access to our Pan-European distribution capability. We have Xetra, which is a system that runs with 250 banks and brokers from 19 countries. We are of course the largest exchange organization in the world and have significant interests in clearing, in settlements and in derivatives. I think the WSE already has a good index-future offering. But there are many more products we could develop, so I think our intention is to use the WSE as a hub for Central and Eastern Europe.

There have been some concerns about Frankfurt cooperating more closely with Vienna. Your cooperation with the WSE would be greater than with the Vienna Stock Exchange?

We already have technical cooperation with Vienna. We supply them with a trading system, which we [also] do for [exchanges in] Ireland and Bulgaria. We will, in the future, also do that with the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. Technical cooperation is something different from being the owner of a stock exchange.

Again, I see it more in the light of what Nasdaq announced. There are exchanges that want to compete.

In order to be able to compete with other markets in the region, the WSE needs to have state-of-the-art technology, Pan-European distribution [and] access to scale. Those are things that we can bring to the table in equities, in derivatives. We believe we would be a good partner for the WSE. And also for the financial center. Poland is a large economy and needs a functioning capital market. That is something where I believe we can add a lot of benefits to the Polish market.

How do you see your chances against other the bidders – Nasdaq, the London Stock Exchange and NYC Euronext – which have also expressed an interest in the WSE?

I think compared to the others, we are a unique [bidder], in the sense that we probably have the most assets to bring to Poland as a financial market.

If you look at Nasdaq, it has decided to openly compete with the WSE, while they're in the process of a tender. I think the LSE only operates in equity so they cannot bring that derivative angle to it. NYC Euronext, again, are more in Europe on a cash-equity footing. So in terms of synergies and what we can bring to the Polish market, I think we are probably the best partner for the WSE.

What would a WSE takeover by your company mean for businesspeople in Poland?

I think that would mean that the success which the WSE has had in the past – and I think it's currently a very successful franchise – will hopefully grow larger. We would want to have our hub and our base for CEE in Warsaw and I think our intention would be to further [globalize] the WSE. In Europe we don't talk about domestic stock markets any more, we talk about Pan-European stock markets and I think that is the new dimension we need to bring to the WSE.

Has the economic crisis changed your plans?

Not really. Of course I think expectations in the future are a bit more moderate than they were before, but I think it does not change our strategic perception of the region and it does not really change our plans.

Why do you think Poland is doing relatively well compared to other economies?

Poland has done a very good job in privatization. I think [it] also has had a very successful stock exchange. If you look at how the privatization process has worked, you have many companies that were successfully listed on the market, where investors bought shares and I think have done good investments into the stock market. So I think Poland is one of the few countries in the CEE that has successfully developed an equity-capital culture. If you look to some other countries in the region, that has not happened likewise. And I think that is something that was quite beneficial for the Polish economy.