market architecture of selected stock exchanges in ... - Gilles Daniel

182.2.6 The Warsaw Stock ExchangeThe Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE, Polish: GiełdaPapierów Wartościowych w Warszawie SA (GPW))opened on May 12, 1817, the first stock exchange inPoland started trading as the Mercantile Exchange in Warsaw on May 16, 1817.During World War II and the following regime of the communist system, theWarsaw Stock Exchange was closed. Not until 1989, along with political changes,the new non-communist government began creating the infrastructure of the Polishcapital market. On October 16, 1990 Poland and France signed the intergovernmentalagreement to create a stock exchange in Warsaw, before the first tradingsession was held on April 16, 1991. In the following months, a computerized traderegistration system and a computerized settlement system were introduced. InOctober 1994, the WSE was accepted as full member of the International Federationof Stock Exchanges (FIBV) before the WSE was accepted as a full member of theFederation of European Securities Exchanges (FESE), ten years later (WSE 2005).Today, the non-profit, joint-stock company currently has 38 shareholders, includingbrokerage houses, banks, a listed company, and the State Treasury. Figure 7 gives anoverview of the structure of the Polish capital market.Figure 7: Structure of the Polish Capital MarketSource: http://www.gpw.com.pl/index_e.asp, 06/01/2006