Swedish vendor Cinnober Financial Technology has been selected to provide the platform for Turquoise, the bank-backed equities trading facility being set up by seven investment banks to compete with the domestic stock exchanges in Europe. The news comes as Morgan Stanley's Eli Lederman is appointed CEO of the venture.
The selection of Cinnober follows heated speculation that OMX was set to become the sole technology provider for Turquoise, particularly following reports that Plus Markets - which uses OMX technology - was in reverse takeover talks with Turquoise.
The break down of those negotiations last week is thought to be due to disagreements over technology. Simon Brickles - the former LSE executive who now operates Plus Markets - was reported to be unhappy with the selection of Cinnober - rather than OMX - as technology provider for Turquoise.
In a statement Turquoise says the decision to select the Swedish vendor came after an "in-depth review of a wide range of possible suppliers".
"Cinnober's TRADExpress technology best matched Turquoise requirements for a state of the art, functionally rich solution with exceptional reliability and low latency," says the statement.
Cinnober also built the Boat trade reporting system which has been established by many of the same investment banks behind the Turquoise project.
Earlier this year DTCC subsidiary EuroCCP was selected to provide clearing and settlement services for the venture. Turquoise says the combination of EuroCCP with a Cinnober platform will enable it to drive down the total cost of trading.
Launch of the platform has already been severely delayed and will not launch until the second quarter of 2008. Turquoise says the system is expected to be fully functional by the end of next year.
Along with its technology provider Turquoise has announced that Morgan Stanley's Eli Lederman has been appointed chief executive of the venture.
Lederman is currently a managing director in Morgan Stanley's sales and trading division, where he oversees the European electronic trading business for equity and fixed income products.
He joined Morgan Stanley in New York in 1993 and was instrumental in developing the US equity electronic trading business, prior to moving to London in 2001.
Lederman says following his appointment the Turquoise venture "will now streamline decision-making and move this young business forward quickly".
He will take on the role of CEO of Turquoise from 1 December.
Turquoise is being set up by founding members Citi, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and UBS to compete with domestic stock exchanges in Europe - in particular the LSE - following the introduction of the EU's Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID).
Earlier this year French investment banks BNP Paribas and Société Générale Corporate & Investment Banking also joined the consortium.