SIFMA President Randy Snook Advocates Improvements in Equity Market Structure

SIFMA Executive Vice President Randy Snook delivered remarks at the Equity Market Structure Conference. He spoke about the "tangible and actionable" recommendations made by SIFMA's Board of Directors for improving equity market structure.

Due to changing technology and regulation, Mr. Snook explained, the increasing complexity of equity markets warranted a review of equity market structure. For that reason, he said, SIFMA's Board of Directors and a "broad-based task force" composed of SIFMA members were tasked with compiling a set of recommendations to improve equity market structure. In essence, the completed recommendations amount to three working concepts: (i) addressing complexity and fragmentation, (ii) providing for fair and timely access to market data, and (iii) enhancing transparency.

Looking ahead, Mr. Snook stated, two key areas require immediate regulatory action:

• Reducing Access Fees. Mr. Snook explained that access fees "have distorted market pricing as they have grown to become a substantial percentage of overall trading costs and become several times higher than the fees charged by off-exchange venues." Mr. Snook encouraged the SEC to reduce the current cap on access fees to no more than five cents per 100 shares; and
• Reviewing the SRO Status of Exchanges. According to Mr. Snook, the status of exchanges as self-regulatory organizations ("SROs") "raises a number of important policy issues, such as conflicts of interest and regulatory duplication."

See: Mr. Snook's Speech.Related news: Finance Professor Discusses Implications of For-Profit Status of Exchanges (May 6, 2015).