Hanover Stock Exchange (HAN) .HA

The Hanover Stock Exchange is a stock exchange which began in Hanover, Germany in 1785, and is today owned by the holding company BÖAG Börsen AG. The exchange is housed in the estates Calenberg-Grubenhagen, in Lower Saxony. The Hanover Stock exchange is also known as The Lower Saxon Stock Exchange in Hanover. The Hanover Stock Exchange is sometimes spelled “Hannover“ Stock Exchange. In 1999, it merged with the Hamburg Stock Exchange, under the umbrella of the holding company BOAG Borsen AG.

The Hanover Stock Exchange is one of eight major regional stock exchanges in German history, alongside the Berlin Stock Exchange, the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, the Stuttgart Stock Exchange, the Bremen Stock Exchange, the Düsseldorf Stock Exchange, the Munich Stock Exchange and the Hamburg Exchange. Starting in 1992, the German financial system moved toward more centralized trading. That year, The Frankfurt Stock Exchange joined a holding company called Frankfurter Wertpapierbörse AG, and renamed it Deutsche Börse AG. Today, the vast majority of trading activity in Germany takes place on the Deutsche Börse AG in Frankfurt. 

While the Hanover Stock Exchange lives on as a combined entity, along with the Hamburg Stock Exchange and the Dusseldorf Stock Exchange, other regional stock exchanges have ceased operations altogether. One example is the now defunct Bresden Stock Exchange, which ceased operations in 2007. Many factors contributed to the fragmentation of the German financial system prior to 1992, including political interference and the existence of a communist government in East Germany until 1990. The introduction of advances in information technology also reinforced the trend toward centralization of trading after the fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1997, Deutsche Börse introduced the Xetra trading system, which was Germany’s first electronic public limit order book, a product that greatly expanded access to equities markets.

Today, BOAG Börsen AG combines the Hanover, Hamburg and Dusseldorf Exchanges under one roof, after the purchase of the Dusseldorf exchange in 2017. The combined company offers a wide range of financial services and allows customers to trade stocks, bonds, or credits in the European cap and trade emissions market. BOAG Börsen AG also compiles financial information and publishes several indices of asset prices, while facilitating the trading of foreign currencies. Even so, more the Deutsche Börse exchange in Frankfurt is a much more important stock exchange, and it executes more than 90 percent of all trades in Germany. The remaining trades are largely executed in Hamburg and Hanover.