Tadawul’s custody model to see more changes in 2018, says CEO

Saudi Arabia’s independent custody model (ICM) will see further changes starting from January 2018, after being restructured after migration to the T+2 settlement system in April 2017, Khalid Al-Hussan, chief executive of the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul), told Al-Arabiya TV on Sunday.

“The independent custody model was introduced in 2015, but it has not only failed to meet the needs of foreign investors as the market had been using the T+0 settlement system, but also of index compilers,” Al-Hussan added.

In its annual country classification review, FTSE Russell did not add Saudi Arabia to its index of emerging market countries amid its September country classification annual review, Argaam reported.

FTSE Russell anticipates that Saudi Arabia would meet the requirements for inclusion as a secondary emerging market from early 2018 when further changes to the ICM are introduced.