BEC started its operations in November of 1989, becoming the first Latin American entity that implemented an electronic system of transactions in real time. Thus, BEC caused a modernization that brought a change in Chilean and Latin American equity market. Thanks to the foundation of BEC, people did not need any longer to attend to a physical trading in order to monitor developments. From then on, everyone could access on line and in real time to the market's operations. The information acquired the quality of being immediate, and this attribute became an essential condition in the market.
One of the BEC's targets is to close people to the stock market. This is the reason why BEC has always been concerned about clients and general public's needs and expectations, in order to turn them into complete troubleshooting.
The fact that led to the birth of BEC was the need in trading of having a frame with less restraints and more competitiveness, in the very period when the country was undergoing the best investment conditions. This situation represented a historic turning point in Latin America. Furthermore, a number of investment banks showed interest in create a new established securities market to inject competitiveness and dynamism into the financial market.
The main challenge for the founders was to face this vast project: to create a transactional computing system. Within the regional securities markets, there was not any other similar experience that could have been a pattern to follow. The only known example was Nasdaq in the USA, which became the first world electronic stock exchange in 1971.
As a way to canalize the Chilean current upward trend, the first talks between the interested parties in establishing a parallel market that were able to satisfy the brokers' necessities, took place in December of 1987. We can name Vicente Muñiz, business partner of Chilemarket Brokers Company; Daniel Tapia, economist; Sergio de la Cuadra, former Chilean Minister of Finance; Pedro Samhan and Sebastián Piñera, among others.
Just a month later, in January of 1988, the Chilean Over-the-Counter Securities Broker Association (Asociación de Agentes de Valores de Chile) called its partners to study the creation of a new "stock exchange without trading". After a few weeks, 23 entities committed their support to the development of the project. Two planning years were enough to make of BEC a reality. It started to work on November 2 of 1989.
The use of high technology, made easier the deployment of cutting-edge transaction computer terminals, which meant a great jump-start for the securities market, not only in Chile, but also in the rest of Latin America.
BEC's first steps were characterized for its transparency, new dealers' entry, and cost cutbacks for future over-the-counter securities brokers.
Even though, it started offering a single service (share trading through a system known as Sitrel), from its very beginning, BEC favored the invention of new products, which make possible the development of the market. Actually, nowadays Sitrel not only allows to trade shares, but also to make all kind of equity market business, such as trading, auctions and tendering, and the transaction of all instruments involved in the stock exchange market (stocks, financial intermediation and fixed-income instruments). In 2002, BEC was the first stock exchange that launched the "fixed-income instrument trading" in the history of Chilean market.
- Creation ADRián
This index gathers all Chilean companies that list securities in ADR on the stock exchange in the United States.
- DCV Access
On July 1 of 1998, BEC became the first Chilean stock exchange market that permitted the liquidation of share operations through the Central Securities Deposit (Depósito Central de Valores, DCV). Through an electronic system, the DCV processes and stores over-the-counter securities broker's transference operations. This way, the share market obtains more transparency and safety. Similarly, BEC was the first stock exchange market that made its systems suitable to liquidate, either fixed or variable income instruments in DCV.
- First Chilean Stock Exchange on the web
In November of 1999, BEC launched the first trading web page in Chile, which reported in real time the movement of the stock market and financial systems of the country, giving to general public, more access to the daily securities market operations.
- Innovation in the fixed income
On August 20, 2000 was officially initiated the first round of fixed income in the country, responding to a growing market need for compromise papers issued by the Central Bank of Chile, thus setting prices according to supply and demand exist.
- Foreign exchange transactional software
In 2003 it took place one of the market tipping point in Chile, when BEC and SIF Garban Intercapital (nowadays, SIF ICAP) took into partnership in order to bring Datatec into the market. Datatec is a foreign exchange and derivatives electronic system that made possible the trading of all kind of currencies and rates, enhancing the business chances. This system brought to Chile options that already existed in the most developed markets.
- Family Rates
The BEC was the first Chilean stock market that offers a family of indices (Chile 65, Small Cap, Large Cap, Holdings, Adrian, TEND and sectoral indices) developed based on international standards as others were created at the global level as the S&P500.
- Voice Broker
On November 2 of 2004, BEC changed the face of Chilean and Latin American Securities Market when introduced the service called "Voice Broker". Voice Broker is an electronic dealing desk to which brokers can login and be part of the trading of bonds, currency, and even more sophisticated instruments, such as swaps and forwards.
