The London Stock Exchange has embraced competition on two fronts—by moving ahead with a plan for a link to Swiss clearing house SIX x-clear and by opening up the Italian equities market to rivals.

The LSE is likely to open the link before the end of the year, according to SIX x-clear’s chief executive Marco Strimer. He said: “With the LSE, everything is ready to go. We are in talks and have not yet set a live date but I will be very disappointed if it’s not this year. Client interest is really good and we are confident of decent flows.”