The Moscow Exchange (MOEX) announced its financial results for the year ended December 31, 2018, this Wednesday, revealing a record 12 months for the exchange in terms of fee and commission income.
Specifically, fee and commission income increased by 11.5 percent year-on-year to an all-time high off RUB 23.6 billion ($358.5 million). This was largely driven by the growth of fee income across all markets.
Net interest and finance income, which excludes any realized gains or losses from investment portfolio revaluation, was RUB 15.8 billion. When compared to the previous year, this is down by 2.9 percent.
MOEX FX Market Reports Solid Results
2018 was a busy year for MOEX, especially in terms of foreign exchange (forex) trading and products. During the year, the exchange added a number of new products across its markets, included seven new currency pairs which started trading on the FX market.
In addition, the exchange also launched an over-the-counter (OTC) Trading Platform for bonds. MOEX also partnered with Integral to provide OTC Liquidity in EUR/USD and GBP/USD for FX Market participants, as Finance Magnates reported.
During the 12 months ended December 31, 2018, the total fee and commission income on the FX market was RUB 3.99 billion. When measured against 2017, which reported an income of RUB 3.83 billion, this is up by 4.3 percent.
Trading volumes during the year also managed to increase slightly by 0.2 percent, rising from RUB 347.7 trillion in 2017 to reach RUB 348.4 trillion in the 12 months ended December 31, 2018.
In 2018, corporates continued to join the FX and Money Markets, the report said. As of today, 36 corporates can trade on the FX Market directly. Furthermore, more than 600,000 retail investors opened accounts in 2018. This brings the total number of brokerage accounts to 1.96 million by year-end 2018.
Alexander Afanasiev, CEO, MOEX
Source: MOEX
Commenting on the results, Alexander Afanasiev, Chief Executive Officer of Moscow Exchange, said: "In 2018, trading volumes rose significantly across nearly all markets, enabling the Exchange to set a new record for annual fee and commission income. An important growth driver was the surge of retail investor operations in the market and the growth of private investment in exchange-traded assets."
“We see that the efforts of MOEX and the entire financial community to grow domestic retail investing have begun to deliver results. Since the beginning of 2018, the number of individual brokerage accounts has increased by more than 800 thousand to 2.12 million today. I am confident this growth will continue.”
