* Expands trading software development centre
* Thumbs up to improved security situation
(Adds quotes from press conference)
By Anne Cadwallader
BELFAST, Oct 19 (Reuters) - NYSE Euronext plans to expand its trading software development business in Belfast, creating up to 400 jobs, NYSE and Northern Ireland's regional government said on Monday.
The decision by the world's largest exchange operator by the market cap of its listings reflects the improved security situation in Northern Ireland after decades of sectarian violence.
"We need a place where we think that our people can be safe," said Lawrence Leibowitz, head of U.S. markets and global technology at NYSE Euronext, the owner of the New York Stock Exchange.
"Whether that's people who are visiting but also the indigenous people there ... this is a great place for us to be."
On Friday, a car bomb injured a Belfast police officer's partner in an incident that showed the continued risk of dissident Republican militants unsettling the province's fragile political balance. "No one should doubt the scale and significance of this (NYSE) expansion," said Martin McGuinness, deputy first minister in Northern Ireland's power-sharing executive and a former commander in the Irish Republican Army.
Northern Ireland will provide up to 9.6 million pounds ($15.65 million) to support the move of the NYSE Technologies unit into a new development facility in 2010.
The investment, whose total value was not disclosed, will create up to 400 new technology, operational and corporate jobs "in the coming years", including 75 from a prior deal, the government and NYSE said in a joint statement. ($1=.6135 pounds) (Writing by Andras Gergely in Dublin; Editing by Mike Nesbit and Lin Noueihed)