Boat gears up for November launch; Turquoise board appointed

Will Meldrum, managing director of Markit, which is responsible for business operations for Project Boat, told the Reuters news agency that 22 customers have signed up to the platform so far - including its nine owners - who trade two thirds of Europe's over-the-counter trades by value.

Boat is being set up by ABN Amro, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and UBS to meet the trade data reporting and OTC pre-trade price transparency requirements of the EU's Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID).

Cinnober is supplying the technology that will underpin the Boat system, which is set to launch on 5 November. BT Radianz and Colt will provide connectivity and infrastructure hosting services for the service.

The system - which will collect, validate, store, manage and distribute European equity quote and trade report data - will by-pass those operated by the LSE and other European exchanges.

However, while Project Boat gears up to go live later this year, the launch of Project Turquoise - the bank-backed equities trading platform that will compete with domestic stock exchanges in Europe - has been delayed until the second quarter of 2008.

But despite the delay, the banks behind Turquoise have appointed a board.

Citi has appointed Pinar Emirdag and Richard Evans, its global head of electronic trade execution, to the board, while Goldman has put forward Philip Hylander, global equity trading joint head and Bryan Koplin, an electronic trading executive.

Credit Suisse has nominated Nichola Dobinson, managing director of equities, and Naseer Al-Khudairi, head of algorithmic trading. Merrill Lynch has put forward Niki Beattie, head of market structure in Emea, and its head of European equities Brent Clapacs.

Morgan Stanley's chief operating officer for equities Simon Hogan and head of equity trading David Russell are also named, along with UBS director Duncan Higgins and the bank's head of European trading Nick Holtby.

Deutsche Bank's European head of global equity markets Garth Ritchie and technology executive Stephen McGoldrick have also been nominated to join the Turquoise board.