American exchanges top global revenue chart

American exchanges topped the 2019 global revenue chart with a 5.5% hike to $14.13 bn, beating out their counterparts in Europe and Asia, according to a benchmark study by Burton-Taylor International Consulting.

By contrast, revenues of European exchanges rose 2.75%, to $12.78 bn while those in the Asia Pacific region including Australia’s ASX, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, Japan Exchange Group and Singapore Exchange, were up just 1.45%, to $8.68 bn.

Andy Nybo, Burton-Taylor

In total global exchange revenue jumped 3.5% in 2019, reaching a record $35.6 bn for the year. Trading, clearing and settlement remained the largest business segment in 2019 generating $21.8 bn, representing 61.4% of overall exchange revenue. However, growth was anaemic – rising only 1.5% – and this was offset by stock exchanges’ extension into other areas such index, analytics and valuation data services.

For example, the report showed that information services’ revenues climbed 7.7% while market technology and access saw a 6.6% boost with listings and issuer recording a 1.8%. rise.

“Exchange strategies to diversify beyond traditional transaction-based services helped support industry growth in 2019, as trading and clearing revenues increased at the slowest pace since 2015,” says Andy Nybo, Managing Director at Burton-Taylor. “Exchanges are expanding their suite of information services through a combination of internal development and strategic acquisitions,”.

He adds, “the pending acquisition of Refinitiv by the LSE Group is a clear indication of how important information services are for the exchange industry, with future acquisitions in the market data and analytics space a foregone conclusion.”

Drilling down, the top five exchange operators- Intercontinental Exchange, CME Group, Deutsche Boerse, LSE Group and Nasdaq held a combined 53% market share in 2019. ICE reigns as the largest global exchange, recording $3.6bn, followed by CME with $3.5 bn and Nasdaq showing $1.8 bn.

Deutsche Boerse is the biggest bourse in Europe Middle East Africa with $2.9 bn in revenue while the LSE came in second on $2.1 bn and ICE in third place with $1.5 bn in EMEA revenue.

In Asia, HKEX is in front with $1.8 bn in revenues with Japan Exchange Group on the next rung with $1.0 bn while the Singapore Exchange and ASX accounted for $637.1 m and $621.7m, respectively.

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