Israel Stock Exchange To Create Crypto Platform Citing ‘Window Of Opportunity'

In a bid to expand the Israeli economy’s exposure to cryptocurrencies, the Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) has released its new strategic plan for the years 2023-2027 which foresees the creation of a new platform for digital assets. Under the plan, "TASE will promote the implementation of innovative technologies, including DLT, tokenizing of various classes of digital assets and smart contracts,” the exchange said in a statement. "TASE intends to examine multiple potential action plans, including conversion of existing infrastructure to innovative technologies, deployment of innovative technologies into specialized platforms, offering a basket of services and products for digital assets and more,” according to the statement. Ittai Ben Zeev, the CEO of the Israeli exchange, commented that the initiative is designed to put TASE in a preferential position to benefit from the ongoing technological transformation of the global financial markets. "The next five years are a critical window of opportunity for TASE to play an active role in the technological revolution of the global capital markets; the plan anticipates the needs of the market and takes the development and management of innovative services and products to the next level; we will not only partake in the change but aim to spearhead it,” he said. The CEO declared that TASE "will leverage our home court advantage in Israel to adopt and develop Fintech and position TASE as a hub of services and products. TASE will also build up the local capital market's activity to match Israel's economic strength and global activity, utilizing this unique opportunity for growth and expansion of its activity."It is noteworthy that, earlier this month, TASE announced that, for the first time in Israel’s history, the country’s Ministry of Finance and the exchange are collaborating to   issue government bonds with the use of a blockchain platform."TASE and the Accountant General's examination is motivated by the developments in the financial markets in recent years, including the use of DLT, tokenizing of different types of assets and the various tests ran by financial institutions and central banks worldwide concerning the issuance of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC),” the exchange said in a statement. In the past months, various Israeli financial institutions moved to embrace crypto. Last March, Israel’s Bank Leumi announced it became the country’s first institution of this type to enable clients to trade cryptocurrencies. Trading services will be carried out through the bank’s online trading platform Pepper Invest. Pepper Invest offers its crypto trading services in cooperation with blockchain infrastructure platform Paxos.