Document ID: SEC-2013-0823-0001
Agency: sec
Document Type: Notice
Title: Self-Regulatory Organizations; Proposed Amendment to Revise Usage-based Vendor Fees: Options Price Reporting Authority
Posted Date: 2013-05-01T04:00Z

[Federal Register Volume 78, Number 84 (Wednesday, May 1, 2013)]
[Notices]
[Pages 25500-25501]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2013-10236]

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SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

[Release No. 34-69448; File No. SR-OPRA-2013-01]

Options Price Reporting Authority; Notice of Filing and Immediate 
Effectiveness of Proposed Amendment to the Plan for Reporting of 
Consolidated Options Last Sale Reports and Quotation Information To 
Revise Usage-Based Vendor Fees

April 25, 2013.
    Pursuant to Section 11A of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 
(``Act'') \1\ and Rule 608 thereunder,\2\ notice is hereby given that 
on April 11, 2013, the Options Price Reporting Authority (``OPRA'') 
submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission (``Commission'') an 
amendment to the Plan for Reporting of Consolidated Options Last Sale 
Reports and Quotation Information (``OPRA Plan'').\3\ The proposed 
amendment revises its Usage-based Vendor Fees. The Commission is 
publishing this notice to solicit comments from interested persons on 
the proposed OPRA Plan amendment.
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    \1\ 15 U.S.C. 78k-1.
    \2\ 17 CFR 242.608.
    \3\ The OPRA Plan is a national market system plan approved by 
the Commission pursuant to Section 11A of the Act and Rule 608 
thereunder (formerly Rule 11Aa3-2). See Securities Exchange Act 
Release No. 17638 (March 18, 1981), 22 S.E.C. Docket 484 (March 31, 
1981). The full text of the OPRA Plan is available at http://www.opradata.com.
     The OPRA Plan provides for the collection and dissemination of 
last sale and quotation information on options that are traded on 
the participant exchanges. The eleven participants to the OPRA Plan 
are BATS Exchange, Inc., BOX Options Exchange, LLC, Chicago Board 
Options Exchange, Incorporated, C2 Options Exchange, Incorporated, 
International Securities Exchange, LLC, Miami International 
Securities Exchange, LLC, NASDAQ OMX BX, Inc., NASDAQ OMX PHLX LLC, 
NASDAQ Stock Market LLC, NYSE MKT LLC, and NYSE Arca, Inc.
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I. Description and Purpose of the Plan Amendment

    The purpose of the amendment is to make changes in OPRA's Usage-
based Vendor Fees. Usage-based Vendor Fees are fees that are payable by 
each OPRA Vendor on the basis of access to current OPRA data by OPRA 
``Subscribers'' (end users of current OPRA data) that have entered into 
Subscriber Agreements with the Vendor. OPRA permits Vendors to pay 
Usage-based Vendor Fees on either a ``quote packet'' basis or an 
``options chain'' basis.\4\ OPRA is proposing to increase the Usage-
based Vendor Fee based on counting quote packets from $0.005 per quote 
packet to $0.0075 per quote packet, and to increase the Usage-based 
Vendor Fee based on counting options chains from $0.02 per options 
chain to $0.03 per options chain.
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    \4\ The term ``quote packet'' is defined in footnote 6 to OPRA's 
Fee Schedule as consisting of any one or more of the following 
values for a single series of options or a related index: last sale, 
bid/ask and related market data. The term ``options chain'' is also 
defined in footnote 6 to OPRA's Fee Schedule; an ``options chain'' 
consists of up to all series of put and call options on the same 
underlying security or index. (OPRA's Fee Schedule is available on 
OPRA's Web site, www.opradata.com.)
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    In essence, an OPRA Subscriber may obtain access to OPRA data in 
one of two ways: Either by signing a Professional Subscriber Agreement 
directly with OPRA, in which case the Subscriber pays Professional 
Subscriber Device-Based Fees directly to OPRA; or by entering into a 
Subscriber Agreement with an OPRA Vendor, in which case the Vendor pays 
Usage-based Vendor Fees to OPRA for the Subscriber's access to current 
OPRA data.
    OPRA's Usage-based Vendor Fees were established at their current 
levels effective on January 1, 2000.\5\ In the thirteen years since 
then OPRA's Professional Subscriber Device-Based Fee has, on a weighted 
average basis, more than doubled.\6\ Moreover, over the period from the 
year 2000 through the year 2012, the average number of series in each 
class of options for which OPRA disseminates data has almost 
doubled.\7\
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    \5\ See File No. SR-OPRA-99-02; Release No. 34-42152 (November 
17, 1999). In File No. SR-OPRA-99-02, OPRA reduced the quote packet 
Usage-based Vendor Fee from a range of $0.01-$0.02 (with the actual 
amount determined on the basis of total usage) to the current $0.005 
per quote packet, and implemented the alternative options chain 
Usage-based Vendor Fee at the current $0.02 per options chain.
    \6\ In the year 2000, OPRA's weighted average Professional 
Subscriber Fee was approximately $12.55 per device; it is now $26.00 
per device. (In the year 2000, OPRA had a sliding scale for its 
Professional Subscriber Fees, with different rates based on whether 
a Professional Subscriber was a Member of one or more of the 
Exchanges that were parties to the OPRA Plan and on the Professional 
Subscriber's number of devices. OPRA's Professional Subscriber Fees 
in the year 2000 ranged from $10.50/device for an Exchange Member 
with 750 or more devices to $27.00/device for a non-Member with nine 
or fewer devices. Over the course of several years, OPRA made 
incremental changes in its Professional Subscriber Fees to eliminate 
all distinctions in these fees based on a Professional Subscriber's 
status as a member or nonmember of an exchange that is a party to 
the OPRA Plan or on the Subscriber's total number of OPRA-enabled 
devices. See File No. SR-OPRA-2004-01; Release No. 34-49382 
(February 25, 2004)).
    \7\ The term ``class'' refers to all options based on the same 
underlying interest (e.g., the same security or same index). The 
term ``series'' refers to all options in the same class that have 
otherwise identical terms (including put or call, expiration month 
and exercise price). As of December 31, 2000, there was an average 
of 67.7 series per class for which OPRA disseminated data; as of 
December 31, 2012 there was an average of 132.7 series per class. 
This increase in the number of series per class means that a 
Subscriber today receives approximately ninety-five percent more 
data in an options chain than the Subscriber did twelve years ago. 
It does not mean that a Subscriber receives more data in a quote 
packet, but OPRA believes that the current ratio of the options 
chain fee to the quote packet fee (four to one) is appropriate, and 
that an appropriate adjustment to these fees is to increase each of 
them by fifty percent.
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    OPRA's Usage-based Vendor Fees for receipt of OPRA data by 
Nonprofessional Subscribers and by Professional Subscribers are each 
subject to monthly caps. For Nonprofessional Subscribers the cap is 
$1.25 per Nonprofessional Subscriber per month. For Professional 
Subscribers the cap is the per-device fee applicable to the 
Professional Subscriber (currently $26.00 per month) times the number 
of the Professional Subscriber's User IDs.

[[Page 25501]]

OPRA is not currently proposing an increase in either of these caps.\8\
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    \8\ The cap for Nonprofessional Subscribers is at an amount 
equal to OPRA's Nonprofessional Subscriber Fee. OPRA recently 
increased its Nonprofessional Subscriber Fee, and increased the cap 
for Nonprofessional Subscribers at that time. (See File No. SR-OPRA-
2012-02, Release No. 34-66564 (March 9, 2012)). Because the cap for 
Professional Subscribers is stated with reference to OPRA's 
Professional Subscriber Device-Based Fee, it adjusts automatically 
in lockstep with the Professional Subscriber Device-Based Fee.
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    At current usage rates, these changes in OPRA's fees would result 
in an increase in its revenues of approximately $1,500,000 on an annual 
basis if the changes do not cause any Subscribers to hit their 
applicable fee caps and do not cause any Vendors to discontinue 
providing access to current OPRA data to their Subscribers. (OPRA 
believes that these factors are likely to cause the actual increase in 
OPRA's revenue to be less than this amount.) OPRA believes that 
increasing its Usage-based Vendor Fees will restore a more appropriate 
balance to the relationship between its revenues derived from 
Professional Subscriber Device-based Fees on the one hand and Usage-
based Vendor Fees on the other hand, and that an increase in its 
revenues resulting from these fee increases will represent an 
appropriate contribution to covering the overall costs of OPRA and its 
member exchanges to which these fees may properly be applied.
    The text of the proposed amendment to the OPRA Plan is available at 
OPRA, the Commission's Public Reference Room, http://opradata.com, and 
on the Commission's Web site at www.sec.gov.

II. Implementation of the OPRA Plan Amendment

    Pursuant to paragraph (b)(3)(i) of Rule 608 of Regulation NMS under 
the Act, OPRA designated this amendment as establishing or changing 
fees or other charges collected on behalf of all of the OPRA 
participants in connection with access to or use of OPRA facilities. In 
order to give persons subject to these fees advance notice of the 
changes, OPRA proposes to provide notice of the changes to OPRA Vendors 
on or about May 1, 2013, and to put the changes into effect on June 1, 
2013.
    The Commission may summarily abrogate the amendment within sixty 
days of its filing and require refiling and approval of the amendment 
by Commission order pursuant to Rule 608(b)(2) under the Act \9\ if it 
appears to the Commission that such action is necessary or appropriate 
in the public interest, for the protection of investors, or the 
maintenance of fair and orderly markets, to remove impediments to, and 
perfect the mechanisms of, a national market system, or otherwise in 
furtherance of the purposes of the Act.
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    \9\ 17 CFR 242.608(b)(2).
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III. Solicitation of Comments

    Interested persons are invited to submit written data, views, and 
arguments concerning the foregoing, including whether the proposed OPRA 
Plan amendment is consistent with the Act. Comments may be submitted by 
any of the following methods:

Electronic Comments

     Use the Commission's Internet comment form (http://www.sec.gov/rules/sro.shtml); or
     Send an email to rule-comments@sec.gov. Please include 
File No. SR-OPRA-2013-01 on the subject line.

Paper Comments

     Send paper comments in triplicate to Elizabeth M. Murphy, 
Secretary, Securities and Exchange Commission, 100 F Street NE., 
Washington, DC 20549-1090.

All submissions should refer to File Number SR-OPRA-2013-01. This file 
number should be included on the subject line if email is used. To help 
the Commission process and review your comments more efficiently, 
please use only one method. The Commission will post all comments on 
the Commission's Internet Web site (http://www.sec.gov/rules/sro.shtml). Copies of the submission, all subsequent amendments, all 
written statements with respect to the proposed plan amendment that are 
filed with the Commission, and all written communications relating to 
the proposed plan amendment between the Commission and any person, 
other than those that may be withheld from the public in accordance 
with the provisions of 5 U.S.C. 552, will be available for Web site 
viewing and printing in the Commission's Public Reference Room, 100 F 
Street NE., Washington, DC 20549, on official business days between the 
hours of 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. Copies of such filing also will be 
available for inspection and copying at the principal office of OPRA. 
All comments received will be posted without change; the Commission 
does not edit personal identifying information from submissions. You 
should submit only information that you wish to make available 
publicly. All submissions should refer to File Number SR-OPRA-2013-01 
and should be submitted on or before May 22, 2013.

    For the Commission, by the Division of Trading and Markets, 
pursuant to delegated authority.\10\
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    \10\ 17 CFR 200.30-3(a)(29).
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Kevin M. O'Neill,
Deputy Secretary.
[FR Doc. 2013-10236 Filed 4-30-13; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 8011-01-P