Q&A with Caja de Valores CEO Alejandro Berney on Leveraging Nasdaq Post-Trade Tech to Modernize Argentina’s Capital Markets

Caja de Valores (CVSA) and Nasdaq recently announced a major modernization effort to improve operations and resilience of the CSD while also positioning it for future market demands and growth opportunities.

We talked to CVSA CEO Alejandro Berney to learn more about the partnership and what a new technology platform will help his organization accomplish.

Can you tell us about Caja de Valores and your strategy ahead?

Caja de Valores is the only entity authorized in Argentina to act as a Central Securities Depository (CSD). As a member of BYMA Group (Bolsas y Mercados Argentinos), Caja de Valores offers capital market participants deposit accounts, custody, registration, settlement and clearance services, as well as complementary services to those already offered by BYMA as a securities exchange, clearing house and issuer.

Given its position in the Argentine market, Caja de Valores plays a leading role in the BYMA Group’s innovation strategy and technological development. For many years, the Group’s focus has been on the scalability of its infrastructure and upgrading its business systems and applications toward a hybrid infrastructure model.

Our growth path includes the incorporation of cutting-edge technology and digitization, including data centers that process all of our custody and trading platforms. Together with Nasdaq, we have also been strengthening our proprietary platform for SME debt instruments by integrating with our local ecosystem with a focus on short-term instruments to finance working capital growth for small companies.

With the implementation of the new custody system, Caja de Valores becomes the second CSD in Latin America to adopt Nasdaq’s comprehensive CSD platform, which aligns with the Argentine capital market and technologies used by the most developed markets in the world.

This milestone contributes to our goal of moving toward a model of greater self-management by BYMA clients. We want to simplify and broaden the scope so that the entire society can enter the capital market. 

What were the key drivers for your decision to update your CSD platform? 

The implementation of the new custody system is part of BYMA’s innovation strategy focused on enhancing the technological evolution of the Argentine market in multiple ways. We started working with Nasdaq with the vision of taking the CSD to the next level with a state-of-the-art technology platform. 

Caja de Valores will have the capacity to process larger trading volumes and intensify its speed and agility in accordance with international standards applicable to these entities with respect to products and messaging services. In addition, as a CSD agent, it will also be able to create, generate and launch new developments for clients with improved delivery times.

The new system significantly reduces the time to market of new asset classes, event types and services, and will incorporate customized connections for existing services.

Additionally, the technology offers standardized protocols to seamlessly connect to in-house and third-party clearing and trading solutions. Another advantage of the platform is that it will receive regular updates to stay at the forefront of international standards and best practices.

How will Nasdaq’s CSD technology help you achieve strategic goals?

As a Group, our purpose is to turn investment into work and development. We want the entire Argentine society to have access to the capital market, and for this purpose, we work on the development of products and financial education.

We believe that all people deserve to have better tools to empower and protect their savings, which at the same time creates opportunities for that capital to reach companies so that they can generate more employment and investments.

To date, we know there is still a lot of potential to grow participation in the capital market among our country’s population. 

Part of our strategy is to reach more and more of the general public and non-investment-expert audiences through embedded finance.

Naturally, growth of this magnitude brings with it the requirement for a technological infrastructure that can support higher trading volumes. This strategic focus drove our decision to move forward with Nasdaq. Launching this new product is the culmination of a strategic and dynamic multi-year plan, which began when Caja de Valores recognized the potential benefits of upgrading its legacy infrastructure with a leading global technology provider such as Nasdaq.

What benefits will this bring to your customers and the capital markets of Argentina?

This is a historic step for the Argentine capital market—jointly developed with a leading global technology solutions provider.

The new system brings significant and concrete benefits to all market participants: banks, broker-dealers, and insurance companies, among others. It boosts Caja de Valores resilience, capacity and speed, and enables the processing of more than 1,000 transfers per second, which is 300 times faster than the previous system.

Since the platform launch in September 2023, the average number of daily transfers in the market increased by 150%, from approximately 300,000 to 765,000 daily transfers, reaching peaks of 1,776,373* in one session (November 16). This responds to the transactional level of BYMA business, as a market generating trades and operations.

The new system made it possible to satisfactorily meet participants’ needs in the last months of 2023, marked by a presidential election context.

What impact does this have on the market? It creates more investments, more trading volume, more investments and more income for people. It also brings more financing for companies, which can count on funds to develop new projects and generate more employment. 

Looking ahead, where do you see CVSA in the next five to 10 years? 

We are a Group focused on evolution. This development is a milestone in the Argentine capital market that initiates a new stage by leveraging standards, opening new doors and creating new opportunities to solve growth challenges. According to our strategic plan, what is to come is marked by a wide variety of projects aligned with innovation trends that govern leading stock exchanges around the globe: automation, scalability, connected systems and self-management, among others.

We will continue working towards our main goal, which is turning investment into growth and development in Argentina.