SEC amends CDS clearing fee

Maximum charge of Rs 500,000:

Sanjeevi Jayasuriya

The Securities and Exchange Commission of Sri Lanka (SEC) has amended the fee for the clearing functions provided by the Central Depository Systems (Pvt) Ltd (CDS) as per the Listing Rule No 10.4. Accordingly there will be a Rs 15 charge per transaction executed on the Automated Trading System subjected to a minimum charge of Rs 10,000 and a maximum charge of Rs 500,000 per annum.

The fee will be based on transaction executed from January to December in each calendar year. The CDS fee shall be paid on or before February 15 in each calendar year to the Central Depository System (Pvt) Ltd.

The maximum limited imposed is a concession to the listed companies. This is an encouragement for the companies having large volume of transactions as the maximum limit is Rs 500,000 irrespective of the number of transactions, a Colombo Stock Exchange official told Daily News Business. The move to amend the CDS fee is a good move and is encouraging for companies having a large number of transactions. This will be a positive effect for more companies to be listed as the cost of continuing to be listed will reduce.

This is beneficial and will reflect on the volume of transactions, Acuity Stockbrokers (Pvt) Ltd Managing Director and CEO Deva Ellepola said. The CDS fees pertaining to transactions for 2011 will fall due on February 15, 2012.