The Binck turbo, which was introduced in Belgium on November 12, 2015, achieved a market share of approximately 50% among customers of BinckBank Belgium within a few weeks, the company has reported. “This is beyond our expectation,” said Thomas Huyghe (pictured), business manager BinckBank Belgium. “Even in the most favourable scenario, we expected to achieve a market share of 50% much later.” At the launch the bank started an information campaign to ensure that the customers would be able to make the transition to the Binck turbo fairly quickly, according to Huyghe. “The fact that the Binck turbo, under the current interpretation of the law, does not fall within the scope of the speculation tax, has obviously also had some impact.”
As part of the tax shift, a speculation tax on capital gains realised by private individuals on equities sold within six months of their acquisition, was introduced in Belgium on January 1, 2016. The tax applies at the rate of 33% on net gains and the government has said it aims to collect €34m with the measure. The speculation tax applies to listed warrants, options and turbos on one or more predetermined listed shares and certificates of shares. ETFs and warrants, options and turbos linked to indices, commodities or currencies do not come under the new tax.
“According to our interpretation of the current law, Binck turbos fall outside the tax,” Huyghe told SRP. “The tax only applies to Belgian and foreign stock exchanges and multilateral trading platforms which work with at least one daily trading and a central order book. Because Binck turbos are traded on a bilateral platform they are not subject to the speculation tax.”
In the Netherlands, where BinckBank has been issuing its own turbos since July 2014, the broker reported a turnover of €2.4bn from 639,096 trades in 2015. Binck turbos are not listed at Euronext Amsterdam but are available via Cats, the trading platform of Börse Stuttgart instead.
BinckBank has reported the result from financial instruments, which concerns the income from the issuance of Binck turbos, was €0.5m in 4Q15. The outstanding position of turbos was on average unchanged compared to 3Q15, the online broker said.
For the full year 2015 the online broker reported total income from operating activities was up 3% to €170.2m (2014: €165.7m). The adjusted net profit was up 32% at €55.5m. The total number of executed transactions amounted to 9.3 million while net fee and commission income rose to €131.5m during 2015. Adjusted net earnings per share stood at €0.79 (2014: €0.60) while the proposed final dividend was €0.25 per share (2014: €0.31), BinckBank said.
Click here to read the BinckBank year report 2015.
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