RNS definition

What is the RNS?

The Regulatory News Service, or RNS, is responsible for disseminating regulatory and non-regulatory information on behalf of UK businesses and publicly listed companies. Operating as part of the London Stock Exchange (LSE), the RNS provides businesses with information that can help them to comply with their disclosure obligations.

What does the RNS do?

The RNS publishes company results, share issues and any changes in a company’s board of directors. These are all things which could affect a company’s share price and performance on the stock market. The RNS makes hundreds of thousands of announcements a year. In fact, most regulatory and price-sensitive UK company information originates from the RNS.

The RNS operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, which enables company news and information to be published and disseminated around the clock.

Why did the London Stock Exchange launch the RNS?

The RNS was officially launched in 1988, replacing the Company News Service, which published full-text reports. Since then, the RNS has become the London stock market’s official news outlet for both regulatory and financial announcements for UK-listed and AIM-listed companies.

Since its founding, the RNS has become a globally recognised provider of regulatory news. This news can play a crucial role in helping traders and investors make informed decisions about the shares of UK companies. This is because the information supplied by the RNS is normally published on over two million professional terminals, databases and financial websites around the world.

For companies, releasing their company news through the RNS enables their announcements to spread quickly to traders and other interested parties.

For individuals, the RNS is a reactive source of news about UK companies. This news could form the basis of some traders’ decisions to open or close a position, which means that the financial markets are very reactive to RNS announcements.