TORONTO, March 11 (Reuters) - A new Canadian stock exchangeset to launch in late March will offer attractive fees formarket data or waive them altogether in a bid to challenge thedominance of TMX Group Ltd's Toronto Stock Exchange(TSX).
Aequitas Innovations Inc said on Wednesday that its Neoexchange will not charge retail investors for access toreal-time displayed market data for securities listed on theprimary and venture TSX exchanges.
It will waive those fees for professionals trading on theNeo exchange until it reaches 5 percent market share, and willgive away market data for Neo-listed companies.
"There is a current stranglehold on the dissemination oftrading information in Canada and it has resulted in prohibitiveand virtually monopolistic pricing," Aequitas Chief ExecutiveJos Schmitt said in a statement.
"This prevents numerous investors, including the vastmajority of Canadian retail investors and their advisors, fromseeing in real-time the full picture of what is really happeningin the markets," he said.
Aequitas said Canadian retail investors pay more than fourtimes what such investors pay in the United States.
The Neo exchange will launch on March 27. The exchange willbegin listing companies in mid 2015.
Aequitas - a Latin term denoting fairness and the origin ofthe English word equity - is backed by Royal Bank of Canada, Barclays Plc, pension fund OMERS CapitalMarkets, mutual fund managers CI Financial Corp and IGMFinancial Inc, telecom company BCE Inc andothers.
The Aequitas model, which also includes plans for a privatemarketplace to fund early stage companies, will attempt to limitcontroversial high-frequency trading strategies by implementingextra costs and speed bumps for them.
High-frequency traders use sophisticated algorithms to tradeshares in milliseconds. Many players, including some large fundmanagers, criticize their market impact. (Reporting by Alastair Sharp; editing by Andrew Hay)