Bapepam wants a periodic review of transaction fees

Bapepam wants a periodic review of transaction fees

JAKARTA (JP): The Capital Market Supervisory Agency (Bapepam) has ordered the management of the Jakarta Stock Exchange (JSX) to periodically review the transaction fees it charges to exchange members and investors.

Bapepam said on Saturday that the evaluation on the amount of the transaction fees should be carried out at least once in three months.

"The result of the transaction fees' evaluation should be reported to Bapepam," the market watchdog stated.

Bapepam did not explicitly rule the cut in the present transaction tariffs but the statement was apparently issued in response to public concern over the high fees imposed by the exchange.

The market watchdog said that the transaction tariffs should be adjusted to the realization of the income of the exchange, which is expected, this year, to receive higher earnings from listing fees.

The JSX imposes a transaction fee of 0.08 percent of the monthly transaction value on securities dealers and brokers, who, in turn, charge their clients a fee of about one percent of the transaction value.

Investors said that the transaction fees are too high because they, at the same time, are also required to pay a capital market tax of 0.1 percent of the gross transaction value.

In the statement, Bapepam also called on the JSX management to audit the financial reports of the exchange members to ensure the soundness of their financial performance.

Bapepam also announced its approval of the draft for the new trading regulations recently proposed by the JSX management. The trading ruling has been broadly reviewed to facilitate the JSX's trading automation.

The JSX was originally scheduled to start its trading automation this week but the plan was postponed due to technical problem.

The exchange management said that the trading automation, which is now being audited, is expected to start in the middle of next month. (hen)