Moscow Stock Exchange may buy its own broker

According to sources, the Moscow Stock Exchange is considering the purchase of its brokerage company. The law does not allow a trading platform to obtain a brokerage license, but owning such a company is not prohibited.

At the end of March, it became known that the Central Bank might open direct access to the Moscow Stock Exchange for investors. Market participants later indicated that if this scenario were implemented, the Moscow Stock Exchange would become a direct competitor to brokers.

According to Kommersant’s sources, due to the resonance, the trading platform decided to take “a different route.” Now the Moscow Exchange periodically intensifies “negotiations on purchase or integration.”

The Moscow Stock Exchange itself did not deny information about the site’s interest in brokers. It noted that in world practice “there are precedents of stock exchanges having brokerage licenses.”

According to the site, the study of these precedents probably formed the basis of the “rumors” about the purchase.

According to the source, the tools currently offered on the Financial Services platform do not fully meet the needs of private investors. To correct the situation, it is necessary to include in the lineup the instruments that are traded on the platform itself. To do this, you will need an independent broker or your own, the source explains.

Tatyana Safonova, senior partner at O2Consulting, believes that the Central Bank will not give its consent to such a transaction, as the Law on Organized Trade prohibits combining currency trading with brokerage activities.

However, the law does not prohibit owning a brokerage firm, the source sums up.