Wall Street firms and lobbying groups including the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association have been advocating for the change. Financial information companies including Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News and a Sifma member, have also accused exchanges of charging too much for data feeds.
‘Outdated Structure’
“It’s an outdated structure,” said Dave Oxner, managing director of federal government affairs at Sifma. “The introduction of a bill would help encourage a more robust public discussion.” It could also put pressure on the SEC to act on the issue as well, he said.
Two of the biggest exchange operators, NYSE Group and Nasdaq Inc., argue brokers and investors already have enough of a say on how the system operates.
Expanding membership to brokers is “unnecessary because the investing public is already well-represented,” Joan Conley, senior vice president and corporate secretary at Nasdaq, wrote in a letter this week to the SEC. It could also pose disruption and litigation risks, Conley said.
NYSE Group, which owns the New York Stock Exchange, sent a similar letter to the SEC earlier this month, and CBOE Holdings Inc., the Chicago Stock Exchange, the International Securities Exchange Inc. and Options Clearing Corp. have also opposed changes.
One notable exception among exchanges is Bats Global Markets Inc., who has argued that market-data fees do need broader oversight.
“The industry spends a lot of money complying with these plans,” said Eric Swanson, general counsel of Bats. “So, is it helpful to have the rest of the industry involved in the process? It’s unfair that they’re not.”