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)