BANCO DE LA REPÚBLICA´S ELECTRONIC TRADING SYSTEM (SEN) COMPLETES 20 YEARS IN SERVICE

On 3 November 1998, Banco de la República (the Central Bank of Colombia) launched the Electronic Trading System (SEN). The SEN is a technology infrastructure managed by the Central Bank for the negotiation and registration of transactions with public debt bonds holdings at the Central Security Depository (CSD).

The users of the SEN can view public debt market conditions in real-time and perform sales, simultaneous, and repo transactions with these titles.  Most of the operations are carried out in the sessions of the so-called first step, to which the entities that participate in the Market Makers Program for Public Debt Securities (PCMTDP), regulated by the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit, have access.

In order to facilitate compliance of the transactions performed, the SEN is interconnected with the CSD, which in turn is interconnected with the Deposit Accounts System (CUD) at Banco de la República. Thus, operations are fulfilled one by one with the movement of balances of securities and cash in real time, under the principle of delivery against payment, in a completely systematized process.

In its twenty years of operation, the SEN has contributed to develop the public debt market in Colombia, speeding up negotiations, creating depth and greater liquidity to the emissions of TES, and contributing significantly to the transparent formation of prices of the public debt yield curve, a crucial element for the valuation of investment portfolios at market prices.

This year (2018) has been characterized by its high trading volume, setting new records of daily negotiations. On 24 August, the figure reached 31 trillion pesos with 6,291 operations. This figure was surpassed again on 16 October, reaching 37.4 trillion pesos through 4,887 operations. Finally, on 18 October, the highest level of negotiation per day was reached, with a total of 48.5 billion pesos through 5,998 operations.