Chi-X Europe, a pan-European multilateral trading facility, has extended its trading services to Austrian stocks.
The MTF is now trading, clearing and settling five of the top component stocks of the Austrian ATX 20 index. These are Erste Bank der Oesterreichischen Sparkas, Voestalpine, Raiffeisen International Bank Holding, OMV and Telekom Austria.
Investment-bank-led MTF Turquoise is also set to offer five Austrian stocks on 22 August, one week after its launch this Friday. Turquoise’s initial Austrian list is almost identical to Chi-X’s, but includes Strabag in place of Telekom Austria.
Chi-X plans to introduce the remainder of the ATX 20 index’s components later in the month.
Portuguese, Spanish and Irish stocks are “under investigation” by Chi-X as future markets to be offered on its platform, with Italian stocks “to be announced”. It is unclear when new MTFs will be able to start trading in Italy, following testing delays with Monte Titoli, Italy’s central securities depository.
Turquoise will start trading an initial list of five stocks in both Portugal and Ireland on 22 August, but as yet has announced no plans for Spain.
“Since launching some seventeen months ago, we have introduced services for many of Europe’s most heavily-traded equities and are pleased to extend coverage to these Austrian names,” said Peter Randall, CEO of Chi-X Europe, in a statement.
Trades in these stocks will be cleared through Fortis’ European Multilateral Clearing Facility and settled via Oesterreichische Kontrollbank (the Austrian Central Securities Depository).
According to an analysis by Chi-X’s parent company Instinet Europe, execution costs on the underlying Austrian exchange are 4.24 bps compared to the 0.05 bps that can be found on Chi-X, based on a passive/aggressive rebate ratio of 50:50.