BATS Takes Swing at US Market Data Access Fees

BATS Global Markets has announced new fees for market data from its US equities exchanges, as well as data sourced by US customers from its European multilateral trading facility BATS Chi-X Europe, reversing its previous stance on data fees, whereby it offered its core market data to end-user firms free of charge.

Effective July 1, BATS will introduce access fees for its PITCH depth of book and TOP top-of-book feeds for its two US equity exchanges, BZX and BYX, as well as for top-of-book data from BATS Chi-X Europe when sourced from the US. The fees are subject to approval from US regulator the Securities Exchange Commission, which in the past few weeks has approved fee increases and policy changes for the US consolidated tapes.

Under the proposed fee structure, BATS is seeking to introduce monthly access fees for internal data usage of $1,000 and $500 for its BZX and BYX depth of book feeds, respectively, and external distribution fees of $5,000 per month for BZX and $2,500 for BYX. The trading venue also plans to levy an internal use access fee of $500 per month for top of book and a monthly external distribution fee of $2,500, but will substantially lower its existing fees for its Last Sale feeds from both markets to $500 for internal use and $2,500 for external distribution, from $5,000 and $25,000, respectively.

Meanwhile, the new fee structure for accessing BATS Chi-X Europe data from the US will involve internal access fees for non-display usage of $2,400 per month and an external distribution license fee of $4,000 per month for professional users.

These access fees are charged on a per-firm basis, and will not include any per-user fees. However, for display usage of the BATS Chi-X data, the exchange is introducing a new seven-tier fee model. Firms that subscribe via a vendor will pay $75 per month for each display that carries the data, while firms who take the data directly from the venue will incur monthly fees of between $200 and $12,800 depending on the number of users. For example, firms with between one and five users will be charged $200 per month, while firms with more than 201 users will pay $12,800 per month.

The fees are accompanied by a new market data agreement, dubbed the BATS Global Markets Data Agreement, which must be signed by customers receiving the exchange's data.

Since establishing itself as an alternative trading system in 2005, BATS has emphasized its free market data, though never ruled out the potential introduction of fees in future. For example, in a 2008 profile in Inside Market Data, chief executive Joe Ratterman referred to "our current decision not to charge for market data," while chief operating officer Chris Isaacson reiterated the exchange's commitment to free data when outlining fees for new value-add datasets, including Last Sale, in 2010 (IMD, Feb. 26, 2010). For example, BATS already levies fees for value-added data services, such as historical data, for which it charges $500 per month of data downloaded up to three months, beyond which it charges $2,500 for a one-terabyte hard drive, regardless of how many months of data it contains.