A2X’s exponential growth challenges the JSE
Trading platform A2X Markets has shown significant growth over the past six years, with the number of instruments listed on its platform, the volume traded, and the value traded increasing.
A2X was founded by Sean Melnick, Ashley Mendelowitz and Kevin Brady with the goal of creating a new South African exchange to compete with the existing Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE).
It aimed to create an exchange that was more efficient than the JSE with lower fees for investors to trade.
A2X was awarded a licence to operate an exchange by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) on 6 April 2017.
On 6 October 2017, A2X debuted with three listings – African Rainbow Capital, Peregrine Holdings and Coronation Fund Managers – with a combined market cap of R14 billion.
A2X has also managed to attract some of South Africa’s largest companies to its platform, including many JSE Top 40 constituents such as Standard Bank, Sanlam, Discovery, and Prosus.
The platform has grown its trade value from R657 million in 2017 to just over R75 billion in the sixth year of operation.
Its trade count has also increased exponentially to over 1.2 million trades in the last year, up from 213,000 in 2021/2022.
A2X has attracted more companies and investment instruments to list on the platform, adding 88 securities in the past year, which included 13 JSE Top 40 listings.
The platform now has 183 securities listed, including 31 of the Top 40 constituents with a total market capitalisation of around R9 trillion.
It has achieved this growth by offering substantially lower listing fees for companies while attracting investors with much lower brokerage fees.
The company estimates the potential savings to the market is around R900 million a year. It expects these savings to increase to R1.32 billion as more companies and instruments list on the exchange.
There is also no cost, risk or additional regulation to have a secondary listing on A2X for a company or instrument. There is also additional liquidity and narrower spreads available for shares listed.
The available liquidity quoted at the National Bid and Offer (NBBO) for the 27 Top 40 index stocks listed on A2X was 4.7 times greater on A2X than that found on the JSE.
A2X also offers faster trade execution, so if you were looking to transact at the best possible price, this was available on A2X 77% of the time.
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