The Latin American International Financial Exchange (or LAIFEX) is a proposed electronic central trading and exchange facility, which will be housed in the Independent Financial Centre of the Americas (IFCA) in the Dominican Republic. Its primary activities will be to facilitate primary and secondary debt trading between Latin American countries and around the globe.
It will access a market in excess of USD $2.94 trillion of annually traded regional debt - accounting in 2004 for 63.2% of trade in emerging market debt. At present there is no central platform to clear and settle locally denominated trading in Latin America.
LAIFEX will include a private stock exchange where members can apply for seats, and the information technology platform being custom-built for the IFCA can service a regional stock exchange to give companies from around the world access to new capital. If plans go well, the exchange could start running electronically by 2007.