A consortium of nine financial services firms, including Fidelity, Charles Schwab and TD Ameritrade, announced on Monday the launch of a new equities exchange.
The new U.S.-based MEMX, or “Members Exchange,” will be owned entirely by its founders: Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Charles Schwab, Citadel Securities, E*TRADE, Fidelity Investments, Morgan Stanley, TD Ameritrade, UBS and Virtu Financial.
"The founding members of MEMX represent leading retail brokers, global banks and financial service firms, and market makers – a diverse array of market participants organizing for the common goal of improving markets for retail and institutional investors," said Douglas Cifu, CEO of Virtu Financial, in a released comment. "The launching of MEMX is a testament to the market-wide demand for competition, innovation, and transparency."
The new exchange will compete directly with the three remaining exchange operators in the U.S.: Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), Nasdaq and CBOE.
The founders believe that new competition in the exchange marketplace will offer benefits, like potentially lower trading costs, enhanced technology and greater transparency, to investors. In its initial announcement, MEMX purports to offer a “simple” trading model and a “low-cost” fee structure.
MEMX will file for SEC approval in early 2019, the press release said.