The LSE said in November it had agreed to cut its fees for firms listing on the market following an investigation by the Office of Fair Trading.

The impact of lower fees, effective from 1 April 2004, led to an 11% decrease in turnover at its issuer services business, although this was offset in part by an increase in the number of companies coming to its main market

Overall however, turnover across the exchange increased to £63.7m in the quarter, up from £58.7m in the comparable period of last year.

Turnover at its brokerage services unit was up 15% to £24.2 million. Trading on the SETS electronic order book was up 22% on 2003, to 154,000 bargains per day. LSE says the growth in SETS volumes was in part attributable to trading on SETSmm, the electronic order book for FTSE 250 and other leading non order book securities launched in November 2003, which averaged 12,000 bargains per day during the quarter.

The exchange has also recorded a decline in the number of terminals receiving its exchange data, compared with the same quarter last year, but turnover at its information services division was up four per cent, driven in part by sales of its information products including its trading and market data system, Proquote.