Sets wins allies on the stock exchange

The London Stock Exchange's electronic trading platform, Sets, has received an unexpected piece of good news, after users agreed it is saving them money.

During the 1999 Reuters Survey of UK Larger Companies, Tempest Consultants asked listed companies, fund management groups and brokers about the impact of the system. Although most feedback continued to be negative, as it had been in last year's survey, 50 per cent of fund managers said the overall cost of trading is dropping.

However, 82 per cent of those interviewed said the speed of the system is getting worse and liquidity is still a problem. Sixty per cent of centralised dealing desks still prefer to conduct their business away from Sets, using market-makers.

A spokeswoman at Tempest said: "A lot of people, when they saw the results, were surprised half of the people we asked said Sets is getting better, cost-wise. But I think inevitably the system will improve."

In separate news, the chairman of the London futures and options exchange (Liffe) has spoken out against what he called discrimination by US regulators.

Speaking at a conference in New York, Brian Williamson criticised the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for preventing US financial institutions and traders from using Liffe Connect, its recently completed state-of-the-art electronic trading system.

"In the circumstances, delay is equivalent to discrimination against Liffe because other foreign futures exchanges have been permitted to place their screen in the US," he said.

Eurex, the Swiss-German exchange, which won business from Liffe before the launch of Connect, is one such exchange.

Liffe will today file a request for No-Action Relief from the CFTC, a complicated procedure which the exchange hopes will speed up the its entry into the US market.