Oslo Børs, Norway’s national exchange, plans to alter its trading fees for a third time in six months as it continues its battle against fragmentation of Norwegian equities trading.
From 1 April, Oslo Børs will abolish the fee for reporting trades, offer larger discounts for trading in the five most actively traded shares, introduce a discount for cross-trading, and offer larger volume discounts for all equities. In addition, market participants will be able to change their choice of fee structure more often to suit their trading.
There will also be an increase in auction fees for all shares and a reduction in discounts for OBX shares for specific fee structures.
According to Oslo Børs, based on trading activity for 2009, this latest round of fee changes would have caused a reduction in annual revenue of approximately NOK 10 million (€1.25 million) for the exchange.
“These further fee reductions are a consequence of the continuing increase in competition for equities trading and our commitment to strengthening our competitive position,” said Bente Landsnes, president and CEO of Oslo Børs, in a statement. “It is important for us to meet our customers’ requirements, and to respond with changes that will increase their trading activity on our marketplaces.”
As well as dealing with competition from multilateral trading facilities such as Chi-X Europe, BATS Europe, Turquoise and Burgundy, further pressure has been put on Oslo Børs by Nasdaq OMX Stockholm, which started trading Norwegian blue-chip stocks in March last year.
According to data vendor Thomson Reuters, Oslo Børs accounted for 91.09% of trading in OBX 25 shares in January, with Nasdaq OMX Stockholm trading 3.68% and Chi-X Europe trading 2.65%.