Secondary trading venue Cboe Europe is seeking to offer US-style price improvement without payment for order flow to European retail brokers.
From September 2025, Cboe Europe will start competing with Euronext’s Best of Book and Equiduct Apex with the launch of free trading for retail at or better than the European Best Bid and Offer (EBBO) and associated retail liquidity program (RLP).
It will offer retail brokers commission-free trading at or better than the European Best Bid and Offer (EBBO) as derived from its own lit market best bid and offers as well as those of Turquoise and the corresponding listing exchange.. Under the program, all retail orders will be executed at the top available bid or offer across European trading venues, aiming to ensure best execution for users.
The new service places Cboe Europe in competition with established retail‑focused solutions, Euronext’s Best of Book and Equiduct’s Apex. Euronext’s Best of Book, operating within its central limit order book (CLOB), aims to deliver delivers best execution; And Euronext says it did so 99.26% of the time, and generated €80 million in cumulative savings for retail investors in 2024 as well as provided an average price improvement of €2.61 per trade in.
Equiduct’s Apex, launched in late 2019, offers fee-free trading at the volume‑weighted best bid and offer (VBBO).
The new Cboe offering comes as the payment for order flow ban comes into effect in Germany – it is already the case elsewhere in Europe – early 2026. Prominent voices amongst market participants, of which Optiver have voiced their concerns about single market maker models.
Optiver said: “Ahead of upcoming MiFID rules that ban PFOF, some firms are introducing new structures that directly link single market-maker venues with affiliated brokers. These structures offer even less competition for retail order flow than their predecessors.”
Cboe Europe underscored that its program dispenses with both trading commissions and reliance on PFOF mechanisms. It promises execution at EBBO or better without fees with retail liquidity providers (RLPs) interacting with retail flow preferentially if they are quoting at better prices than the EBBO.
Cboe told Global Trading the pricing related to this program was not yet public but that the associated trades would be specifically flagged for post trade transparency and processing.
In June, Cboe Europe’s lit market volumes were on par with those of Euronext at €100 billion, it printed the vast majority of off book on exchange trades at €358 billion, versus €378 billion across all venues, making it the undisputed leader of bilateral trade reporting.
