JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs backing exchange start-up MEMX!

Members Exchange (MEMX) is a new equities exchange that will compete with the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. It has just received backing from more Wall Street usual suspects, with Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Jane Street Capital putting their money behind the project.

The project is headed by several broker-dealers, banks, and high-frequency trading firms. The companies are Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Charles Schwab, Citadel Securities, E*TRADE, Fidelity Investments, Morgan Stanley, TD Ameritrade, UBS, and Virtu Financial, who have been onboard the project since the beginning of 2019.

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“We are pleased that these three prominent market participants are joining us in our efforts to increase transparency, reduce fees, and focus on technological innovation in the equity markets. We appreciate their financial commitment, but more importantly, we will benefit from their counsel through our launch and beyond,” said Jonathan Kellner, chief executive officer of MEMX.

New Jersey-based MEMX will not charge initially for market data or for connecting to its venue but plans to do so at a later date.

The exchange already has electronic trading giants Virtu Financial and Citadel Securities in its founding circle too, which process roughly 40% of US stock market shares. “One aim is that they have a strong voice in the market structure debate alongside exchanges,” says MEMX’s CEO Jonathan Kellner, who once headed up electronic brokerage Instinet.

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Kellner has declined to reveal the sizes of any of the investments in the new round, but last year MEMX did raise $70 million in an initial round.