Farnham joins from Morgan Stanley where he served 13 years, most recently as an executive director in operations. He had been seconded to Turquoise for most of 2007 as acting COO and is now joining the venture formally in this capacity.

Farnham - who is the chief architect of the Turquoise clearing system - will oversee market operations and overall programme management for Turquoise.

Meanwhile Higgins has been recruited from UBS, which he joined nine years ago. He was most recently executive director within the client trading and execution business at the Swiss investment bank.

Higgins has been working on the Turquoise venture since its inception and represented UBS on the Turquoise steering committee.

As head of client relationship management, Turquoise says Higgins will lead the client coverage, marketing and communications functions for the venture.

Both Farnham and Higgins report to Turquoise CEO Eli Lederman.

The Turquoise platform is being set up by a group of investment banks to compete head-to-head with domestic stock exchanges in Europe. The venture delayed the launch of the platform until the second quarter of 2008. The service was originally expected to be operational when MiFID came into force but will not launch until the second quarter of 2008. The original consortium is also understood to be looking at recruiting other banks to join the initiative.

Commenting on the new recruits Lederman says: "These important appointments show our resolve that Turquoise will meet the market's high expectations. We're making great progress towards our 2008 delivery."