European equity trading venue Quote MTF and London-based investment bank Capital Partners have outlined plans to enter the Spanish market.
Tapping Quote MTF's hosting system, Qube, the Spain-X MTF platform will look to launch in the next few months, taking on the Bolsas y Mercados Españoles (BME), which currently enjoys a near-monopoly.
Spain has the fourth largest European stock market but did not see the rush of new entrants experienced elsewhere in Europe after the introduction of MiFID.
In February, an MTF, called Pave, that had planned to take on the BME, was forced to put its launch on ice, citing "the very challenging market and harsh financial environment in Europe, especially in Spain".
However, with pan-European exchange operators such as Turquoise and Bats Chi-X Europe taking advantage of new clearing and settlement rules to increase their Spanish market share dramatically, Quote MTF hopes it can crack the market.
It claims that Spain-X MTF will provide a competitive offering with significant efficiencies compared to the BME and a strong sustainability argument to support equities trading through a period of depressed volumes.
Claudio Rojas, CPG, says: "This is about bringing much needed competition to Spain while ensuring that domestic participants are engaged in strategy, benefit from value created and that domestic interests are protected."
The acquisition of Nordic MTF Burgundy by Oslo Bors last month demonstrates the tough trading conditions facing new competitors to existing domestic exchanges. Burgundy's exit follows the take-over of Turquoise by the LSE, the shuttering of Nasdaq OMX Europe and the merger of Bats with Chi-X.