LONDON (Reuters) – Trading in euro-denominated shares shifted from London to new platforms in the European Union on Monday, the first day of trading since Britain left the bloc’s single market.
Britain’s unfettered access to the EU ended on Dec. 31, cutting off the City of London from much financial activity in the bloc. EU banks and asset managers must use a platform inside the bloc for trading euro-denominated shares from Monday.
Trading on Cboe Europe and London Stock Exchange’s Turquoise units in Amsterdam, and on Aquis Exchange’s new Paris platform, grew steadily in opening trade, with no glitches so far.
Data from Cboe, Europe’s biggest cross-border share trading platform, showed that its Amsterdam unit had traded shares worth 108 million euros by 0840 GMT, or 3.6% of the European market.
Aquis had traded 107 million euros in shares in Paris, more than three times the volumes it was trading in London.
“At this moment, 99.6% of the business has shifted in a clean shift,” Aquis said.
Turquoise’s Paris unit had traded 28 million euros, compared with 32 million euros in London.
No European trading had taken place on the three EU hubs until the shift Monday. Trading in non-EU listed shares remains in London.
“I don’t think there has been any impact from this switch,” said Keith Temperton, equity sales trader at Forte Securities. “It has been planned for years.”
(Reporting by Huw Jones and Thyagaraju Adinarayan; Editing by Rachel Armstrong and Jan Harvey)
