EasyEquities offers clients a Non-DMA (Non-Direct Market Access) platform, with 15 minute delayed prices on SA, US, EU and UK and 20 minute delayed prices on Australia. The reason for the delayed prices is simple: economics. The relevant exchanges charge (some quite a bit) for streaming live data and anything inside of these specific delays they consider as live so hence would charge for. There’s sufficient evidence supporting the fact that when investing, delayed prices versus live prices make little difference. However, to meet some clients requirements we have built a feature to view a snapshot live price, thereby allowing the client to pay only per view using EasyCredits.
E.g. Client A invests once month. As a non-professional the exchange will charge R98.92 (excl. VAT) for access to live prices (i.e. whether it’s used or not). If Client A uses EasyCredits and requests a live snapshot prior to making their investment, the current cost is R0.25, which is quite a difference from R98.92 (excl. VAT).
More importantly, whilst clients view 15 minute delayed prices, all execution of trades and orders occur at the live underlying market price at the time. Being a non DMA platform, we are reliant on the prices that are available to all market participants on exchange. We do not make prices. Clients trades are executed at the best prices that are available on the exchange, not just to us, but to all market participants.
E.g. if a share’s price on exchange is 360c – 370c, when clients buy on the EE platform they will be filled at the price of 370c (offer price) and when clients sell on the EE platform they will be filled at the price of 360c (bid price). The last traded price is not referenced for execution. Clients cannot, via the EE platform place underlying market bids and offers because it’s a non-DMA platform and clients do not participate in auctions (opening, closing or intraday volatility auctions).
EasyEquities as a platform has consciously made the decision to be Non-DMA especially given our long term investment philosophy.