Yes, that is the beauty of the ASX monopoly for post trade systems.
I'm sure will remember that ASX used to make a disproportionate amount of its profits on cash equities, until Chi-X popped up.
What followed was a bit of political lobbying, "its against the national interest to split the liquidity pool across multiple venues" blah blah blah
And then whilst everyone was looking one way, ASX ducked and weaved and recut its pricing, reducing cash equities (where Chi-X ultimately would become a competitor, albeit only really in the crossings market) and jacking up the price of post trade services (namely, clearing and settlement)
That's right. Clearing and Settlement. CHESS. Monopoly.
Which is to be replaced with another monopoly, the ASX closed loop block-chain settlement system. Which is where the ASX get to then host the primary register, and Link gets diddley squat. No wonder they (and computershare) are complaining.
In fact, the only potential competitor to the ASX post trade services monopoly is ClearPay, which is still a concept and still some 2 years away.
But geez, the ASX cant' have price competition on a monopoly! It trades of premium valuation of 35x PE - that wouldn't be good !
Hence, ASX is stamping out ISX.
Expand
