Australia’s second equities exchange, known as Chi-X, will begin trading on Monday, as a competitor of the Australian Stock Exchange.

Initially only eight securities will be traded, but that’s set to expand once systems have been tested.

Peter van Rosendal reports.

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Chi-X Australia will be the first exchange to rival the Australian Stock Exchange.

Its launch could not have been timed any worse for the ASX which is recovering from its worst system failure in its history.

Some commentators say the technical glitch yesterday could have cost Australian markets over one billion dollars in missed trading as the Greece debt deal boosted international trading.

But despite its competitor’s fumble, Chi-X is getting a mixed response from stock brokers and analysts.

Many brokers are less than confident in the new platform.

Hamish Dee, Director of Equity deriviatives RBS Morgans: “There are different systems involved so there’s additional cost for brokers to bare to set up new trading systems, etcetera. Plus it’s at this stage it’s an unproven operation in Australia”

But other analysts say competition in the industry has had a positive impact, pushing the ASX to reduce trade execution fees by almost half, and that’s something that investors are cheering.

Peter van Rosendal, QUT News.