WASHINGTON, D.C.— Benjamin Schiffrin, Director of Securities Policy for Better Markets, issued the following statement in connection with Better Markets’ new Fact Sheet entitled “The SEC Should Want Investors to Pay Less to Trade”:

“The costs investors pay to buy and sell stock matter. Investors whose costs are too high will lose out on the benefits of participating in our equity markets. That is why, in 2024, the SEC reduced the fees that exchanges may charge investors to access their quotes.

“Tomorrow, Congress will hold a hearing regarding how to ensure our equity markets are efficient and transparent. It should look to what the SEC did in 2024. The SEC found that reducing the ‘access fees’ exchanges may charge would make prices more transparent. Any reduction in the access fees that exchanges charge increases price transparency by reducing the difference between the quoted price and the actual price. Reducing the fee traders pay for accessing an exchange’s quotation also reduces overall costs for investors. Policymakers concerned about the efficiency and transparency of our equity markets should welcome reduced fees for precisely these reasons. Indeed, the SEC estimated that, under the change, investors would have paid about $2 billion less in access fees in 2023.

“Nonetheless, a national securities exchange has now requested that the SEC essentially undo the lower access fees through exemptive relief—an order declaring that it need not comply with the reduced fees. But the SEC should side with investors and not the exchanges that want to charge investors more. For one thing, exchanges should not be able to use exemptive relief to achieve what they were not able to achieve through the policymaking process. The SEC adopted the reduced fees as a formal rule, and an appellate court rejected the exchanges’ legal challenge, finding no basis to second-guess the SEC. For another, the reduced fees have not even gone into effect yet. That means the SEC has not yet seen how they work in practice, so there is really no basis for the SEC to change its position now.

“The reduced access fees benefit investors. The SEC, and policymakers of all stripes, should favor reforms that make it less costly for investors to trade and that make the price investors receive for their trades more transparent. That is what the reduced access fees do, and that is what an SEC that exists to protect investors should want.”

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