The Frankfurt market's Xetra trading system is the real success story of the merger. "Ten years ago, you'd have been laughed out of the room for suggesting that London and Frankfurt could merge as equals," says Hornik. "At that time, the German bourse amounted to nothing. But they were much faster to take advantage of the possibilities of high tech, and the Frankfurt market has turned itself into Europe's NASDAQ — the center of the continent's burgeoning technology investment sector." NASDAQ appears to have recognized that reality, too, by signing a memorandum of understanding with the new iX company to refrain from opening a competitor and to allow the trading of share flotations.
While we may be more accustomed to seeing the companies traded on stock markets merge, the merging of market trading systems themselves are yet another symptom of globalization. "Ever since you've had the move toward a single currency in Europe, there's been pressure from institutional investors for a Europe-wide trading system," says Hornik. "Previously, a Dutch pension fund, for example, was legally bound to keep the bulk of its investments in the same currency as its liabilities, i.e., Dutch guilders. The euro made it possible for them to invest across borders, which has been an inefficient and costly process as long as each country maintains its own bourse." The London-Frankfurt merger, which will later include the Spanish and Italian stock exchanges, follows an earlier merger between the Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels markets. "The globalization of the stock market is inevitable," says TIME business editor William Saporito. "Local stock markets came into being only because everything was bought and sold locally. But that's no longer the case."