We plan to fundamentally improve the trading landscape in Europe by providing high performance technology, differentiating functionality and a reasonable tariff structure to attract liquidity.

The Turquoise platform is open to any qualified participant, each of whom will be treated equally. Backed by nine of the largest investment banks in Europe, Turquoise will have a critical mass of natural liquidity from day one. It will be a trading venue that every serious execution house will need to access. We believe its openness is as important as the pedigree of its founders, and Turquoise today is led and run by an independent management team with a broad range of industry experience.

At Turquoise we recognise that businesses succeed in competitive marketplaces when they engage with customers. We are listening, we are innovating and we will respond to the needs of the marketplace. We will provide a better place to trade by continually anticipating and adapting to the changing needs of the market. Market-leading low latency and high throughput will be hallmarks of our platform, as will innovative functionality to provide a better service for small and larger orders.

Experience in other markets testifies to the benefits of competition, in better pricing and better service. Some people say that new liquidity pools engender fragmentation, and make it harder to trade. We think that argument is past its sell-by date: technology today enables traders to re-aggregate liquidity and we think you should be able to choose for yourself. And we fully expect you to choose the venue with better prices and better value.

We're here to shake up the market through a company that serves its clients properly. A successful Turquoise will inject competition into Europe's trading and will improve market dynamics in terms of cost, technology and overall quality of execution. As such, we expect all market participants, including end-owners of assets to share in the benefits of Turquoise's launch.