Nasdaq OMX Europe, the pan-European multilateral trading facility (MTF) owned by exchange group Nasdaq OMX, will increase the fee for trading on its NEURO Dark non-displayed order book to 0.2 basis points from 0.1 bps from 1 September.
“We went aggressive on pricing for NEURO Dark from the start so people would take notice,” Charlotte Crosswell, president of Nasdaq OMX Europe, told theTRADEnews.com. “Firms expect to pay a premium for trading in the dark, and we are still very competitive compared to other dark pools.”
NEURO Dark started trading on 7 May.
Chi-Delta, the dark pool offering from rival MTF Chi-X, currently charges 0.3 bps per execution. BATS Europe, a US-exchange-backed MTF, will be the firms platform to use maker-taker pricing in its dark book, which is scheduled for launch on 7 August. It will pay liquidity providers 0.1 basis points and charge liquidity takers 0.25 basis points. Turquoise charges 0.50 for dark trades.
However, Nasdaq OMX Europe will reduce its all-in charge for routing to and executing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) to 0.3 bps from 0.5 bps starting 1 September. This reflects the LSE’s new tariff schedule, also effective from 1 September, which will increase value-based discounts and make them easier to achieve.
The LSE will drop its maker-taker structure, introduced in September 2008, in favour of an identical fee for both liquidity providers and takers. The new fees range from 0.45 basis points for the first £2.5 billion traded to 0.20 bps for all value traded above £10 billion. Under the old schedule, the lowest fee for taking liquidity (an aggressive trade) was 0.45 basis points, and was only available to members trading more than £30 billion a month on the exchange.
“We have reduced our costs to take advantage of the LSE’s decrease in aggressive execution fees,” said Crosswell. She added that if the costs of clearing are included on the LSE’s new price plan, participants will still have to pay 0.36 bps even if they trade at the highest threshold of £10 billion.
This is not the first time Nasdaq OMX Europe has changed it pricing in accordance with LSE fee changes. For example, the MTF cut its all-in LSE routing fee to 0.65 bps from 0.9 bps when the exchange updated its tariff structure last September.
“MTFs are more nimble and able to change fees much quicker and easier than exchanges,” said Crosswell. “Since we launched our onward routing service, we have taken steps to ensure routing to the LSE via Nasdaq OMX Europe is cheaper than trading there directly.”
The MTF will also continue to offer the high volume tier rebates it introduced in June throughout August 2009. Those who add an average daily consideration of over €20 million will be rebated 0.65 bps, while those who trade over €40 million will receive 0.75 bps.