The head of the Toronto Stock Exchange took her plan to promote international co-operation among stock exchanges to the annual meeting of the Investment Dealers Association of Canada on Monday.

Barbara Stymiest, CEO, TSX Group, said the exchange has been advancing the idea of mutual recognition of stock exchanges.

“The mutual recognition of stock exchanges – or more precisely the mutual acceptance of the different rules, standards and requirements that lie behind stock exchanges in different markets – addresses a number of major problems that are blocking the way to more open global securities markets,” she said.

Under the existing system of nation-based equity markets, decades-old differences in the rules have created protective walls in the form of excessive transaction costs for trans-border trading and major compliance and financial burdens in registering and listing in different markets.

Stymiest said the idea of mutual recognition attempts to recognize these very real and historically important issues.

“Instead of trying to eliminate differences among different markets, it embraces differences as a natural and inevitable result of a diverse world,” she said.