Deutsche Börse is to introduce a new service designed to provide private investors with immediate execution and a best price guarantee.
Scheduled to be made available to market participants in the autumn, Xetra Best Execution (Xetra Best) will allow private investors' to directly place small orders on the Xetra platform, which must then be either executed immediately or posted to the Xetra orderbook, says the Exchange. The service enables banks to beat the best price in the Xetra trade book for immediate execution of small orders.
Volker Potthoff, member of the executive board of Deutsche Börse responsible for Xetra division, says: "We are offering market participants a new service for retail trading which will put private investors on the demand side in a better position when it comes to immediacy than any other service existing at the moment."
Banks that want to execute customer orders in Xetra Best will have to function as liquidity managers in the Xetra order book.
Potthoff points out that investors will still have the option of placing their orders directly in the Xetra order book. They can decide whether they prefer immediacy or want to place a limit order in the order book for a particular reason.
Xetra currently has a market share of about 90 per cent of German equities turnover.