Turquoise Derivatives, which was formed by the merger of Turquoise with the London Stock Exchange's derivatives platform EDX, launched its FTSE 100 Futures contracts today in direct competition with NYSE Liffe and with the aim of brining competition to the European derivatives marketplace.

Nine banks have signed up to provide access from today. Those are: Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital, Citigroup Global Markets Limited, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Nomura and UBS.

Notable by their absence are Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank, two of the shareholding banks.

Adrian Farnham, chief executive of Turquoise said: "We are delighted to have the support of a number of banks and liquidity partners who share our vision of introducing a more competitive and open market for trading Equity Derivatives in Europe."

Speaking to FOW, Farnham said that the European derivatives market is in need of increased competition and that Turquoise Derivatives has been launched to provide that.

For more, see this month's FOW, out this week.