The trading platform will offer pricing incentives to its largest clients in order to boost its market share in Spain.
Chi-X Europe, the brokerage-owned multilateral trading facility, has announced that it will launch a three-month price promotion for six actively-traded EuroStoxx 50 stocks.
The initiative is aimed at increasing Chi-X Europe’s market share in the country, which currently stands at about 2 percent. The promotion, which begins October 1 and is slated to last three months, includes orders of Santander, BBVA, Iberdrola, Inditex, Repsol and Telefonica, the six stocks accounting for about 80 percent of the total volume traded in Spain.
“We are hoping that our market share and liquidity will be boosted in that time,” said Belinda Keheyan, a Chi-X Europe spokesperson, who added that the company is looking to increase its market share up to about 5 percent in Spain. “We hope that some of that will stay with us,” Keheyan added.
There is a reason for the specific target percentage. “Once you get to 5 percent, then the smart order routers start to take notice of that volume,” said Nathan Renyard, post trade manager at Chi-X Europe. “It can give more liquidity to your books. So 5 percent is quite key.”
Under the promotion, orders of the six stocks will be free of trading, clearing and settlement fees once clients have traded more than €200 million ($280 million) of those particular stocks within a single month. The exchange, which operates under a maker-taker pricing structure, will also increase the rebate offered to liquidity makers, from 0.2 basis points to 0.3 basis points.
Chi-X Europe was founded in 2007 by Instinet, an agency-only broker. Today, it is owned by a consortium of banks and broker-dealers, including BNP Paribas, Citadel, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Fortis, Getco Europe, Goldman Sachs, Instinet, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Optiver, Société Générale and UBS. Today, Chi-X Europe has about 20 percent market share in Europe.
Chi-X Europe is currently the target of a takeover from Bats Global Markets. The transaction is currently awaiting regulatory approval from the U.S. Competition Commission. A decision on the deal is expected by December.