Markit, a leading global financial information services company, today announced the introduction of a new pricing schedule for its Markit Boat data service.

Markit BOAT provides a comprehensive view of the European over-the-counter (OTC) equity markets. The service gives users access to trade reports on an average of EUR 20 billion of OTC trades in equities every day. This is equivalent to approximately 25% of the daily volumes traded in the European equity markets.

Will Meldrum, Managing Director and Head of Equities Data at Markit, said: "Markit BOAT trade reported data is aggregated from over 30 leading investment firms and multi-lateral trading facilities which use the platform to report their off-exchange equities trades. In February 2009, we introduced a scaling fee schedule that enabled per user fee reductions for firms with a large number of users. Under this new schedule, we are offering an even greater price reduction for all users, including those at smaller firms."

Markit will reduce the cost of pan-European Markit BOAT data from €120 per user per month to €40 per user per month. The new schedule will continue to include nine regional data packages at reduced prices, and will come into effect on 1 January 2010.

Markit BOAT is a MIFID compliant trade reporting platform which enables multilateral trading facilities and investment firms to meet their pre- and post-trade transparency obligations for their cash equity trades.