JSE increases the cess charged on equity trades

It is now costing more to buy and sell equities in Jamaica, as the local equities regulator, the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE), has increased the cess charged on equity trades.

The cess charged has been increased from 0.30 per cent to 0.32 per cent of the value of trade and will be applied on both buy and sell transactions. The new cess took effect on January 1, 2022.

All orders executed before January 1, 2022 will be honoured at the prevailing rate. The increased charge will be reflected as a JSE cess charge on contract notes issued by brokers for the purchase or sale of shares.

The last increase took place on April 1, 2015, where the new cess charge of 0.3 per cent was imposed on each side of an equity transaction coming from 0.25 per cent.

JSE Managing Director Marlene Street Forrest explained that, “the small increase in the cess charge of two basis points on a  transaction is based on the increases in our input cost including those fees such as our trading platform which are affected by a deprecation in the exchange rate”.

She further explained that, “the change is moderate as we expect to weather some of these higher expenditure through the introduction of new services to the market by leveraging our current technology”.

For 2020, the JSE earned $380 million down from $697 million in cess charge.