Costs and benefits
5.1 Annex A contains our detailed cost-benefit analysis of the imposition of the
Standards.
5.2 The main benefits we foresee from implementing the Standards are:
• greater use of ATSs generally, arising from increased confidence among
potential users that operators comply with good practice;
• increased competition between ATSs and between ATSs and other
execution venues (such as recognised investment exchanges or regulated
markets);
• greater competition between intermediaries on quoted spreads and on
method and timeliness of execution;
• an increase in informational efficiency, which will result in a lessening of
trading in transparent markets on the basis of information about trades
only known to direct users of opaque ATSs;
• an expanded market for order, quote and trade information and the
consolidation of this information with similar information from other
execution venues; and
• a reduction in the risk of clients mis-buying ATS services and securities
generally.
5.3 We think the main potential costs of implementing the Standards would be as
follows:
• costs to ATSs, in particular:
a) implementation costs; and