The London Stock Exchange (LSE) has launched a service that allows brokers to use on its trading platform across the internet for the first time.

The exchange's vendor access network (VAN) service provides brokerage firms with a more flexible and cost effective way of trading on the SETS system.

Three stockbrokers - Killik & Co, Goy Harris Cartwright, and Ramsay Crookall - are already live with the service.

'The LSE's VAN service provides us with a sophisticated trading system with none of the associated infrastructure costs,' said Killik & Co managing partner Matthew Orr.

The exchange already provides live market data over the internet through its Proquote subsidiary, but until now it required customers to install a server and set up a connection to the LSE in order to trade on SETS.

'To date, every vendor that delivers trading has had to deliver a server to site. VAN removes that necessity,' said Karen Young, head of business development for information services at the LSE.

By moving to a hosted service, the LSE also cuts out a number of other costs for its customers, such as support and installation of the client-side server.

The service is the latest in a growing list of offerings from the LSE, as part of its strategy to increase non-core revenues and compete more strongly with information providers like Reuters and Bloomberg.

LSE chief information officer David Lester has been working to build the company's information services into a significant business, hoping to position the exchange as the hub for all financial data in the UK.

This year, he set out plans to create a more powerful trading platform (Computing, 20 March), bought Proquote to boost its market data services offering, and launched a corporate data warehouse for supplying additional historical data to customers.

Proquote provides real-time data and prices from the LSE, Euronext, Xetra and Nasdaq, as well as a range of other market information.