Euronext data fees face pushback before October reset

Euronext NV (ENX) is reviewing a 1 October market-data pricing reset after banks and trading venues challenged changes that could lift costs for some firms, turning a tariff notice into a test of exchange pricing power.

The European exchange operator may alter the plan after criticism from customers, industry groups and rival trading venues, Bloomberg reported. Price feeds are not back-office extras for brokers and market makers; they are needed to quote shares, route orders and show best execution across Europe’s fragmented equity markets.

A Euronext spokesperson told Bloomberg the company still “has not yet decided whether to revise its fee schedule or not.”

The dispute lands on a business Euronext has been building for years. Capital Markets and Data Solutions generated €669.3 million of underlying revenue in 2025, according to the company, out of €1,823.2 million of group underlying revenue and income. Bloomberg said the unit accounted for nearly 37 per cent of group sales last year, which explains why customers are watching even small tariff changes closely.

Market data is one of the steadier earnings streams for exchange groups because it is recurring and embedded in trading systems. Customers still argue over the fine print. A charge that looks small in a tariff book can matter once a bank applies it across desks, venues, client products and compliance tools.

What is changing

Euronext says the new framework is built around the EU’s reasonable-commercial-basis regime, which requires trading venues to sell market data on cost-based, transparent and non-discriminatory terms. The group says on its reasonable commercial basis page that the updated pricing takes effect on 1 October 2026.

The date leaves customers time to keep pushing. The European Securities and Markets Authority said in February that market-data providers authorised before 23 November 2025 would have until 22 August 2026 to align contracts and processes under a transition period. Euronext’s start date comes after that deadline, so the final invoices are still months away.

Customers can argue that the model should separate unavoidable market-access data from commercial products. That is the centre of the fight: exchanges say they need to recover the cost of producing reliable feeds, while users say core price information cannot be priced like a premium analytics package.

The pressure is coming from firms that consume exchange data at scale. Alternative trading venues, systematic internalisers, banks and high-frequency trading firms rely on accurate feeds to price risk and compete for order flow. The FIA’s European Principal Traders Association says its members act as liquidity providers across European markets, a role that depends on fast and reliable data access.

AFME, the bank lobbying group, is one of the named industry actors in the pushback. Its members include firms that buy exchange data and also compete in markets where data cost affects spreads, routing economics and client pricing. That makes the dispute broader than a vendor negotiation: it is about how much of Europe’s trading infrastructure can be recovered through user fees, and how tightly regulators should constrain access to core market information.

Financial News London separately reported that banks had pushed back against potential increases. For brokers, the near-term issue is margin pressure. For competing venues, it is whether data costs from the dominant listing venue make it harder to offer low-cost execution elsewhere.

Regulators have been pulled in, although there is no public enforcement action. An ESMA spokesperson told Bloomberg the authority was “aware of the questions AFME poses to Euronext concerning the implementation.”

The outcome will show how much room European exchanges have to monetise data while regulators try to keep core market information on reasonable commercial terms. If Euronext trims the schedule, customers will read it as evidence that coordinated pressure can still alter exchange economics. If it holds the line, trading firms may face a higher bill for the data that lets them compete.