TechCentralTechCentral
    Facebook Twitter YouTube LinkedIn
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn YouTube
    TechCentral TechCentral
    NEWSLETTER
    • News

      E.tv in stunning victory over minister in digital TV fight

      28 June 2022

      It’s official: stage-6 load shedding is here

      28 June 2022

      Stage-6 load shedding highly likely later today

      28 June 2022

      Prosus sale plan sends Chinese tech stocks tumbling

      28 June 2022

      Takealot is ready for the Amazon onslaught: Bob van Dijk

      27 June 2022
    • World

      Pictures: Chinese spacecraft acquires images of entire planet of Mars

      29 June 2022

      Arm aims for leg-up in smartphone games with new chip tech

      29 June 2022

      Warnings of a final bitcoin ‘washout’

      29 June 2022

      Sony launches into PC gaming hardware

      29 June 2022

      Ether holds its breath for the Merge

      28 June 2022
    • In-depth

      The great crypto crash: the fallout, and what happens next

      22 June 2022

      Goodbye, Internet Explorer – you really won’t be missed

      19 June 2022

      Oracle’s database dominance threatened by rise of cloud-first rivals

      13 June 2022

      Everything Apple announced at WWDC – in less than 500 words

      7 June 2022

      Sheryl Sandberg’s ad empire leaves a complicated legacy

      2 June 2022
    • Podcasts

      How your organisation can triage its information security risk

      22 June 2022

      Everything PC S01E06 – ‘Apple Silicon’

      15 June 2022

      The youth might just save us

      15 June 2022

      Everything PC S01E05 – ‘Nvidia: The Green Goblin’

      8 June 2022

      Everything PC S01E04 – ‘The story of Intel – part 2’

      1 June 2022
    • Opinion

      Has South Africa’s advertising industry lost its way?

      21 June 2022

      Rob Lith: What Icasa’s spectrum auction means for SA companies

      13 June 2022

      A proposed solution to crypto’s stablecoin problem

      19 May 2022

      From spectrum to roads, why fixing SA’s problems is an uphill battle

      19 April 2022

      How AI is being deployed in the fight against cybercriminals

      8 April 2022
    • Company Hubs
      • 1-grid
      • Altron Document Solutions
      • Amplitude
      • Atvance Intellect
      • Axiz
      • BOATech
      • CallMiner
      • Digital Generation
      • E4
      • ESET
      • Euphoria Telecom
      • IBM
      • Kyocera Document Solutions
      • Microsoft
      • Nutanix
      • One Trust
      • Pinnacle
      • Skybox Security
      • SkyWire
      • Tarsus on Demand
      • Videri Digital
      • Zendesk
    • Sections
      • Banking
      • Broadcasting and Media
      • Cloud computing
      • Consumer electronics
      • Cryptocurrencies
      • Education and skills
      • Energy
      • Fintech
      • Information security
      • Internet and connectivity
      • Internet of Things
      • Investment
      • IT services
      • Motoring and transport
      • Public sector
      • Science
      • Social media
      • Talent and leadership
      • Telecoms
    • Advertise
    TechCentralTechCentral
    Home»News»JSE not trying to shut out new rival: CEO

    JSE not trying to shut out new rival: CEO

    News By Patrick Cairns15 August 2016
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email

    JSE-new-640

    Speaking after the JSE released interim results on Friday afternoon, CEO Nicky Newton-King said that the exchange is not opposed to new market entrants. This follows claims by potential new rival ZAR X that the JSE was acting in “bad faith” by objecting to its conditional licence.

    The Financial Services Board’s appeals board last week agreed with the JSE that the registrar of security services at the FSB was not legally empowered to grant a conditional licence. ZAR X subsequently renounced the conditional licence it had been awarded, but its CEO, Geoff Cook, had some strong words for the JSE.

    “The JSE has publicly stated that it welcomes competition, yet it has lodged objections, appeals and applications since August last year,” he said. “It even obtained extensions on the period for lodging objections and then pushed the extension beyond the second deadline date. It is unfortunate the process has proved to be so drawn out and long-winded. Prospective JSE competitors will no doubt take note of the tactics.”

    However, Newton-King said that the exchange does not have any problem with competition, as long as it is on a level playing field.

    “The law provides for the manner in which applications should be considered, and the FSB appeals board actually recognised that there is no such thing as a conditional licence,” she said. “It’s welcome that that has been clarified.

    “Secondly, I think its important to recognise that as soon as there is more than one participant in a market, there arise quite complex policy issues that speak to investor protection, systemic risk and the like,” Newton-King added.

    “Those issues were the subject of extensive public debate globally, and I’m sure that the FSB will be engaging in those conversations as well. But the point we were making is that those conversations haven’t happened yet, so it’s inappropriate to suggest that one can grant any form of license without those conversations having been had.”

    She reiterated her belief that competition is good for the JSE.

    “I’ve been regularly quoted as saying that we have used this moment to make sure that every element of our business is as efficient as it possibly can be, with regards to quality of service, the products that we offer and pricing,” said Newton-King. “So even the mere potential of competition I welcome fundamentally because it has helped us re-engineer many parts of our business and it has created a new energy and urgency within the JSE.”

    In this vein, the exchange’s interim results indicate that the JSE implemented nearly R50m in fee cuts in the first half of the year. Newton-King said that this was part of ongoing initiatives to make its offerings more appealing.

    “An exchange is a very high fixed-cost-base business, with variable revenue,” she explained. “The revenue is dependent on how much people use you. In order to be sustainable exchanges anywhere in the world therefore need to make sure that their pricing enables them a reasonable chance of covering their costs.”

    She said finding the correct price point in this regard is more an art than a science.

    “What you try to do is find a price point that encourages your clients to do more with you, so that you can continue to reduce the costs,” she explained. “Then you get a virtuous circle, where you get more transactions so that you can reduce the pricing more, which allows for more transactions and greater liquidity, and so you can reduce the pricing more.”

    The JSE reported a 19% increase in headline earnings per share for the period, from 490,3c/share for the six months to 30 June 2015, to 585,1c/share this year. It increased revenues across all its operating segments, apart from primary markets, where the fee reductions were most felt.

    The JSE also grew its cash balance from R1,55bn last year to R1,76bn. Newton-King explained that this was not indicative of a lazy balance sheet.

    “We are investing heavily in the evolution of our technology and are about halfway through our big R400m project,” she said. “The reality is that accounts for a lot of the cash on the balance sheet. We are also awaiting clarity on the capital adequacy requirements from a regulatory perspective.”

    She added that the JSE has already started conversations about further shortening up its settlement cycle after introducing T+3 last month. However, these discussions are at an early stage.

    “We also have to balance this with a whole lot of other big ticket things that need to happen,” she said. “We haven’t yet made up our minds whether T+2 is a better thing to do than some of the other initiatives.”

    Cape Town presence

    The JSE’s results also follow the opening of a new Cape Town office on Thursday. Chairman Nonkululeko Nyembezi-Heita said that the office is part of enhancing the JSE’s client focus.

    “Our being here has a lot do to with the recognition that we have a really important set of stakeholders based in Cape Town, including the investment management industry,” she said.

    There are also new economic sectors blooming in the province that the JSE believes it can serve.

    “Jo’burg will continue to be the economic centre of gravity in the country, but the Western Cape is beginning to do very interesting things that South Africa hadn’t been hitherto known for, such as the creative economy and technology,” Nyembezi-Heita said “We want to tap into this and be close to this so that we can also serve these nascent industries.”

    • This article was originally published on Moneyweb and is used here with permission
    Financial Services Board FSB Geoff Cook JSE Nicky Newton-King ZAR X
    Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email
    Previous ArticleIcasa strike ends
    Next Article SA gets first gay streaming TV channel

    Related Posts

    E.tv in stunning victory over minister in digital TV fight

    28 June 2022

    It’s official: stage-6 load shedding is here

    28 June 2022

    Stage-6 load shedding highly likely later today

    28 June 2022
    Add A Comment

    Comments are closed.

    Promoted

    How your business can help hybrid workers effectively

    28 June 2022

    Hands off our satellite spectrum!

    27 June 2022

    Watch | Telviva One: adapting to the requirements of business

    24 June 2022
    Opinion

    Has South Africa’s advertising industry lost its way?

    21 June 2022

    Rob Lith: What Icasa’s spectrum auction means for SA companies

    13 June 2022

    A proposed solution to crypto’s stablecoin problem

    19 May 2022

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    © 2009 - 2022 NewsCentral Media

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.