Name: The Global Forces Reshaping Financial Markets
Uploaded: 2025-10-29
Duration: 22 min 26 s

In an ever-increasingly connected world, financial markets play a vital role in ensuring the smooth flow of capital across borders and time zones. For market operators, the rise of digital trading systems and new blockchain technology holds promise for always-on accessibility but comes with potential drawbacks, including gaps in oversight, cyberattacks, and navigating complex regulatory environments. What are the global forces influencing financial markets? How can market operators worldwide advance transparency that enables investors to match their portfolios with environmental and social objectives while reinforcing global market trust? A panel of financial market decision makers share their strategic insights. 

The Global Forces Reshaping Financial Markets

Conferences

Thank you all for being here. Thank you. um, Bonnie, let's start with you. OK, we're seeing a wave of new listing destinations. Um, what are you seeing? And do you think that the traditional financial powerhouses, you know, New York, London, these exchanges are gonna see challenges in the years ahead? OK, uh, maybe let me start with what I am seeing on my part of the world, um. And uh I'm very conscious that I'm still the old fashioned stock exchange when it comes to uh capital raising. And the reason I'm, I'm saying that is because, um, I guess, you know, a lot of you would have been reading about how the private money, you know, has been taking over a little bit, uh, and quite a lot of companies have decided to Stay um private for longer and there's a lot of available capital whether it's from private equity or private credit, etc. However, uh I'm, I'm very pleased to say that um actually year to date we've been doing really quite well uh and Hong Kong. In fact, we have by now probably uh completed close to 80 IPOs, uh raising uh close to $30 billion US dollars for these newly listed companies, uh, and we're gladly sort of at the, at the top of the global league table. Um, and, and I guess at the end of the day, um, Running an exchange or running the capital markets is really about connecting capital with opportunity and there are now various different alternatives that companies can seek to make use of. Um, but my personal view is that we're going to see this increasing um Uh, availability of, of different venues, right, so that companies will have more choices, investors will have more choices, and in fact, you alluded to it at the beginning already with the technology uh now uh also uh being featured, um, the, you know, I, I think, you know, people are, are now seeing a lot more proliferation of From fundraising channels and and uh and means so I think it's upon us, uh, runners of of operators of exchanges to make sure that you know we find ways to stay relevant absolutely and bringing you into the conversation, um, yesterday I was on a panel with uh an entrepreneur who has decided to stay private a little bit longer. What are you seeing in this region and thank you Lou. Good afternoon. Um, yeah, if I look at it from the Saudi capital market point of view and the Saudi exchange point of view, we have been blessed also of having a very healthy IPO pipeline. Of course it's driven by the uh macro level transformation that is happening in the kingdom, um, so, uh, we witnessed a growth in the last 3 years I would say. Um, at least, um, on the average IPO pipeline we have around 8 to 9 IPOs a year. Now the average is around 40, 45 IPOs a year, which is a significant increase, and I think that for for us it's mainly driven by um the transformation driven by Vision 2030. However, as, as uh Bonny was alluding to. Um, the alternative, uh, channels and platforms for issuers, for investors, for market intermediaries today are totally different. We're playing with the different players today compared to, um, yesterday. traditional exchanges used to be the go to, um, to capital formation. Um, it started a few years ago on the private market. Um, but it, it has its own challenges, um, in my opinion. Now it's, it's a wider range of, uh, of, of channels, but I just want to remind ourselves that, um, historically, um, stock exchanges are a source of innovation, uh, from the beginning because whatever we, we, we provide today it's based on technology and innovation, um, the products that has been on the um. Um, and on the markets between developed, uh, emerging and frontier markets has been there for decades, and these are based on innovation and, and I think what, what, what we, the situation we are in today is basically we need to make sure that we are faster, uh, we are adaptive, uh, to what the clients needs, um, rather than being the only. Capital formation. Well, Bob, I think when people think of the NASDAQ, they think of huge tech IPOs, but actually your business is everything outside of the US, and the Nasdaq technology underpins, I think you said, 140 different exchanges. So tell us a little bit about your model. Yes, thankfully I'm actually honored to be up here with two of Nasdaq's long-term partners. So thank you for inviting me to participate with them today, and I What is interesting is that NASAQ has grown as an organization. When I joined 19 years ago, we kind of did two things. We did listings and trading, and that's still the kind of the bow of the ship. When people think of Nasdaq, they think Nvidia today, but they also think Microsoft, they think Starbucks, they think Regeneron, they think the biotech sector that that we've been able to develop. But the reality is we've gone from a $5 billion market cap company. to a $5 billion revenue company that's $50 billion in market cap and done acquisitions and we do everything from trading technology, matching technology, regulatory technology, risk and treasury management, anti-financial crimes. So we do a lot of other things that are beyond the scope of just thinking, listings, and trading these days. But as we said, I spend Most of my time working with entrepreneurs around the globe, we have about 800 companies that are non-US, and that's where I spend my time working with them as well as talking to those companies that might be public companies and you know what one of the things that I'll say to all of you, which is what I said last backstage, is that I believe that most companies belong in their local markets. I firmly do. I don't go to. Kong, China, Tokyo, Singapore, Argentina, and try to convince companies not to list in the local markets because most companies do belong there. But there's a small group of companies every year that choose to list outside their local market, and we at Nasdaq firmly believe we have the strongest value proposition for those companies to list on our exchange, and that's, that's where I spend most of my time. Yeah, I want. Say we do want to take some questions from the audience. So if you have one, raise your hand, we'll get a mic over to you. Um, but Bonnie, you, I think you said that you have about 200 companies in the pipeline, uh, more than that with 300, 300 by now, OK, and talk about what kind of companies like what what do investors want right now, right? So what do investors want right now? Well, maybe I should talk about the 80 IPOs that we've um completed year to date. I would say over half of them are technology focused, so what we call new economy companies. And this year, in particular, we've been uh doing especially strong in the biotechnology space. Uh, I think this is just, you know, very well sought after. And if I look at uh especially the, the books, you know, during the IPO times for um these um companies. Uh, we are very glad to see actually a return of um international investors, um, because, you know, as you've probably been reading in the last few years, we went through a phase where, um, there, there were questions, right, as to, you know, the investability of Chinese stocks, but I think we have, you know, made a lot of progress and so this year, uh, what we were able to To see is really very strong appetite on the investor side. They want AI, they want, you know, anything to do with semiconductors, they want a lot of um uh um um names in the green technology space. Um, but aside from technology, what is also emerging is a very interesting phenomena, uh, which is what we call new consumption. OK, I don't know if you know this, uh, thing called Labubu. Of course, of course, right? I guess, you know, a lot of people know about. I was, I was with Grant in in Shanghai a couple of weeks ago. He's built an amazing business, right? So, um, we now see, uh, you know, a lot of these, uh, sort of new companies. In what we call the IP space, and they're growing very quickly, very well sought after. In fact, you know, I've visited a few cities recently, uh, Paris, London, and, you know, I always see the Pop store and the lines outside waiting to get that blind box. So Tim Cook just got one. you see that? Yeah, yes, yes, yes. I got a mini one for myself. Anyways, um, so you know, really quite a broad spectrum, uh, of what interests investors and, and, you know, to, to sort of put more color on it. I think what we are seeing also is a desire, um, on the part of investors around the world to seek more diversification. I think you know, your Bob has been obviously doing really well on the NASAQ side and we see a lot of flows right globally uh being attracted or gravitating towards the US markets, but I think I missed a lot of the volatility and, and um or uncertainty and predictability we're seeing in the markets. Um, it's quite uh You know, uh uh phenomenon this year seeing um more investors trying to adopt a more diversified, uh, uh, trading or or investment strategy. So the 300 companies in my pipeline this year are waiting to be listed, uh, I would say still, you know, predominantly in the tax space, but we are now seeing um. A lot more variety. In fact, I can tell you that in the last two months I've probably met over 20 different types of humanoid robots. Wow, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, they do all sorts of funny, um, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and you know, quite a few of them are looking. Uh, to seek a listing on Hong Kong Exchange, I think, one of the great things that Khalid, Bonnie, and I all do is that we're able to expand the market. Like, it's, it's not necessarily 300 companies, 300 companies, 50 companies that like we talked about that are in the pipeline. Does the, the, the number continues to grow. Well, we've gone, we went through the end of 21 through 2 or 3 years of tough markets where people couldn't get public. Now suddenly in 25, we're suddenly getting. Some momentum in the US unfortunately they've thrown cold water on it with the government shutdown, but you know we know what the pipeline looks like for 26 and beyond, and I think all of our markets are seeing more and more early stage investors who want to get out, private equity companies, you know, government backed companies, you know, more mature companies, recycling of of companies that have come through private equity. So we're seeing a lot of these fantastic companies that want to come to market and and. We're growing the market together and our platforms are where people are able to raise money and help help the economy. That's what, that's what it's really about for us. Khalid, talk a little bit about the startup culture here, you know, the VC funding like how is that whole ecosystem combining to bring you good candidates? Well, this is basically what we have done when we created, so we run two equity markets, the main market, and we started in 2017. Um, a parallel market we call it the growth, um, uh, as a translation of NO. This is basically to capture, um, these small startups, family businesses that they cannot meet the requirements and the demand um of listing on that platform and we it's tremendous. We, we, we are over 130 companies, um, if we, if we discount corona period. Um, that's a significant and the number of applications we're reviewing now on that particular platform is over 50 applications and every year it's repeated itself. So, um, the exchange as traditionally do, um, they provide, um, um, a platform for exits realizing of of investments or a long investments capital formation for them. And it's a safe, uh, regulated environment that brings a different type of investors to these companies because this is could be part of what the uh startups is looking for, um, as part of their continuation and growth. What, what's, uh, what's striking is basically for us is these companies moving from unregulated environment to a regulated environment. Did we, do we see a big struggle on them and some companies, yes, um, um, and, and this is basically what we encourage, um, these startups, um, small, medium enterprises, family houses, if they decide to go public. This decision is not a 3 month decision. This is a 3. So you have to start the process from early on to change the culture, to change the way you manage things, to understand what the investor will look look at at your company in order for you to perform. And when you say struggle, are you talking about reporting requirements? What are they struggling with? I don't think the reporting requirement is stringent for them to comply with. I think it's a lack of being able to. Understand what are the continuous obligations that they're supposed to live with. Many companies in these small enterprises do not apply compliance officers, for example, the governance officers. All of these types are, all of these functions types of functions are new to them. So we help them through several inductions prior of workshops that the exchange does for them. But um I just, since we, we, we looked at private placements, in my opinion, public and private, um, they used to be far away. They used to be competing heavily against each other. I think the, the gap now is narrowing because of the other alternatives that are coming in place, and this is what we need to be concerned about, um, and I think we're not, we're feeling the pressure, but we're not, I'm not concerned. Because I think this is an evolvement that exchanges have gone through, um, started with. Equity markets then look at the space of um. Security offering services offering around um issuer needs uh financial intermediary needs as well as an investor needs. So with a lot, it will evolve and I was discussing with Bonnie this morning, it is. The The base of change, um, on the alternative platforms on the sophistication of investors, um, it's, it's unheard of. I have been in this business for the last 1819 years. Well, this is, you wake every morning. Um, you come, there's a new channel, there's a new way of doing things. There is a new requirement. Yeah, I mean, we, in fact, that's exactly what we talked about this morning. I think you talk back two decades ago. If you have money and you want to invest, what do you, you likely want to call your brokers and then you talk about, you know, what. There are available and then, you know, you may decide to put some some money on one stock or another. Now, right, we, we basically compete to be to, you know, against cryptocurrencies, commodities, and people can get exposure through pretty exotic um Instruments, right, to get exposure to, you know, all sorts of investment opportunities. So I think now we're entering into the stage where exchanges are not really competing with one another. We're working together with one another to make sure that we all stay relevant and miss all these um uh this intermediation and, and that's quite a fascinating. Well that's a good, that's a good segue to token. and Bob, give us a little primer because I know it's huge and I, you know, it's going to change all of our lives. What is going on in the US versus the rest of the world and what's going to happen in the future? So tokenization in terms of trading is allowed in US securities but outside of the US. So many of you may have heard of that Robin Hood and eToro and some of these companies are trading tokenized. Securities of US companies outside of the US, um, what we actually announced at NASDAQ and that we're trying to use the benefits of technology and, and certainly the blockchain is one that in this area is super relevant is that we're going to move towards the tokenization of the clearance and settlement piece. The trading actually. You know, to say this sounds kind of almost crazy, but blockchain does their validation in about 1 2nd or so. It's maybe a little bit less, it's getting faster, but markets trade faster than that. All of our markets trade faster than 1 2nd. They actually are calculated in microseconds, so we can't do tokenized trading. as quickly as those market participants want us to in the US, and so we'll diminish the liquidity in our market by moving towards that. But what we do know is that the clearance of settlement piece is the natural place and a place that we're moving quickly towards figuring out with the community, you know, obviously we're bringing everyone along, but we think that that's the best place to use tokenization in the US. I see we have a question in the audience if we can get a microphone. Um, Stand up. Hi Alex Tranoff in Silicon Medicine. Um, my question is, uh, to Bonnie, um, uh, you've done such a phenomenal job with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and uh, uh, in recent years, and, uh, uh, you know, in the past couple of years it was a little bit kind of gloomy and doomy. And now it's uh the listing of more so everybody wants to invest in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is hot. I've got 300 companies that are being listed. What's driving this growth and also what, what's driving biotech growth as well and um. Uh, how many of those companies are international and also since we're in the Middle East, how easy it is for the Middle Eastern companies to list in Hong Kong. OK. All right. Well, I think, you know, the first question maybe because they appointed a new CEO at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that explained the upturn. I'm just joking. I'm just joking. I, I guess, you know, I, I touched upon it earlier. It's, um, you know, this desire on the part of investors to really diversify, um, you know, just miss all the uncertainty in the world, um, they, they, they want to put their eggs in more than one basket. And I guess the fact that, you know, China is able to turn out so many fascinating companies. And I mentioned the 300 number, which is my pipeline number, um, that has drawn a lot of attention um to um the, the Hong Kong listings. Um, and I guess, you know, the liquidity also, uh, it's another big attraction. Um, you know, many of you may know that we have, uh, something called the Connect franchise. This is an infrastructure that was built 11 years ago, uh, which basically connects the China market to the rest of the world, uh, meaning that investors. In the Chinese mainland can actually invest in securities listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, which includes a lot of international issuers um through a pretty convenient route, uh, and vice versa, international investors can also invest what we call northbound um into the Chinese mainland through the Hong Kong uh connect franchise, and that has been actually our trump card I have to say. Secret weapon. I stopped using trump card. That's your card, yeah, because, because, you know, we're the only market which offers that, and you can imagine the growing middle class in the Chinese mainland, which is now, you know, reached 400 million, and they are looking really for ways to um uh to, to, to get a return. And so, um, southbound trading, it's now accounting for about 25%. Of our daily trading volume and I think that provides a very good support to our liquidity and therefore um increase in turn the attractiveness of our market as a capital raising center. Now your question about why biotechnology um is, is such a, a, a, we have a very uh well performing biotechnology segment this year in Hong Kong. I guess it's because, you know, we are able to attract very Very exciting companies, um, uh, from the Chinese mainland as well as actually around the world. Um, we have, uh, today attracted biotechnology companies from Singapore and, you know, elsewhere, um, but most importantly, they see it as a convenient way uh to enable them to maybe get into the phase of doing licensing deals with the big. Farmer and having an an acquisition currency in the form of Hong Kong uh stock is a useful one. So you know, quite many things, um, you know, acting together, but I would say, you know, that you know we, we definitely want this, uh, to sustain and so and I think we're gonna have to end it there. Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you.