Chi-X, a pan-European multilateral trading facility (MTF), will prolong its market hours for the Spanish markets by 30 minutes to close at 16.00 UK local time from 2 February.
Trading in Spain via non-domestic trading venues is more complex than other European markets because regulation requires the Madrid Stock Exchange to generate an identification number for each trade before Iberclear, the Spanish central securities depository, can settle a trade. This requires MTFs to aggregate all trades and send them to a local broker who will then cross each trade with itself to produce the identification number. Chi-X uses Interdin as its local broker for this process.
The MTF, which completed its rollout of IBEX 35 stocks last week, currently ends its Spanish trading segment at 15.30 UK time to allow for downstream processing.
Despite the added difficulties, trading in Spain via MTFs is anticipated to be cheaper than the incumbent exchanges.
“The Spanish market offers a complex trading, clearing and settlement tariff dependent on whether you are proprietary or agency trading, how many registration splits you may have and your trading turnover,” said Peter Randall, CEO of Chi-X Europe, at the time of its full Spanish stock rollout. “We hope that introducing our trading tariff, offering clearing with EMCF and settlement with BNP Paribas, we can offer a straightforward competitive approach.”