In August 1890, Emilio Rangel Pestana founded the “Bolsa de Valores de São Paulo” (São Paulo Stock Exchange), known as the BOVESPA. The exchange-traded Brazilian stocks throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with Brazilian stock exchanges being state-owned companies until the 1960s. Each exchange’s stock market was tied to the State in which they traded, and brokers were appointed by the government.
All this changed in the mid-1960s, when the national system was reformed, and the stock market was implemented in 1965 and 1966. At this time, the Brazilian stock market was given a more institutional role, however, it wasn’t until 2007 that the exchange fully demutualised and became a for-profit company.
The exchange saw technological changes to its trading process in the latter 20th century, with the “Sistema Privado de Operações por Telefone” or “SPOT” being introduced to facilitate telephone trading in the 1970s, and computer-assisted trading being introduced in the 1990s. This culminated in 1997 when the new “Mega Bolsa” – a new electronic trading system – was introduced, and later in 1999 when the “Home Broker” was launched to allow internet-based trading.
The exchange then began to expand in the early 2000s, with BOVESPA merging with the Brazilian Mercantile and Futures Exchange (BM&F) in May 2008 to create BM&FBOVESPA, which became the second-largest stock exchange in the world. The exchange then changed its name in June 2017 after the Securities and Exchange Commission of Brazil approved the company to trade under the name B3 S.A. – Brasil, Bolsa, Balcão.
The B3 is a founding member of the Sustainable Stock Exchanges Initiative – formed on June 18th 2012, the day before the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. Today the exchange has companies in Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai, and London, as well as in Brazil.
