By Huw Jones
LONDON (Reuters) – The London Stock Exchange’s pan-European share trading platform, Turquoise, opened for trading on Monday, a spokeswoman for the exchange said, joining two rival operators.
The Amsterdam-based hub was set up to avoid disruption to the LSE’s EU customers, who face having to trade euro-denominated shares inside the bloc from January because Britain’s full access to the EU ends on Dec. 31.
Two other London-based share trading platforms, Cboe and Aquis Exchange, have opened so-called Brexit hubs in the EU to trade shares denominated in euros.
Goldman Sachs is also opening a platform in time for January.
Cboe, Euronext and LSE Group vie to be the largest pan-European share trading platform, each having roughly 20% of the market on any given day.
A notional 37.6 billion euros in shares were traded across all main platforms on Friday, according to figures from Cboe.
Cboe’s Dutch hub has been up and running for months, but volumes are not expected to pick up until January. Aquis said its Paris unit came on stream on Nov. 11.
Turquoise offers trading in stocks that have a primary listing in the European Economic Area, with the same shares still being offered in London.
While opening alternative trading platforms in the EU won’t lead to many jobs leaving London, other trading-related activities, such as clearing and settlement, are also likely to move over time.
Many international banks in London have opened Brexit hubs in the EU and are under pressure from regulators to undertake activities such as stock, bond and derivatives transactions for EU clients from inside the bloc rather than in London.
(Reporting by Huw Jones; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and David Goodman)
