The London Stock Exchange claims to have received membership applications for its forthcoming EuroSets Dutch trading service from firms representing around 85% of the market in trading Dutch securities.
The Exchange, which is competing with Deutsche Borse to attract disaffected Dutch brokers away from Euronext, says it has now received applications from 25 Dutch firms, in addition to forms from existing Dutch-based and London-based member firms who can use their London Stock Exchange membership to access the market.
In addition, all of the major vendors and software houses – including Bloomberg, Cognizant, Deriva, GL Trade, ORC, Proquote, Reuters, Royalblue, RTS and Thomson Financial – have committed to support trading access to the EuroSets Dutch service.
Commenting on the membership take-up, Martin Graham, director of market services at the Exchange, says: "We are very encouraged by the number of firms that have applied for membership to the Dutch Trading Service, and take this as a further sign that customers are keen to make competition work.”
The Exchange says it continues to make good progress towards a go live date of 24 May 2004. Integration testing with LCH.Clearnet is progressing according to plan says the Exchange, and the network hub in Amsterdam is installed and fully tested, ready for customers to access.