Jersey City, NJ, March 15, 2022—MEMX, a market operator founded by a diverse group of participants to benefit all investors, today announced it will launch a U.S. options exchange. MEMX Options will leverage the strengths of MEMX’s data-centric exchange architecture and state-of-the-art infrastructure. The exchange will adopt a price-time model and is targeting a Q4 launch, pending SEC approval.
“We are excited to build upon our successful track record of delivering value to market participants. MEMX Options will use technological advancements to increase determinism, reduce costs and drive competitive improvements for our options members, just as we did in equities. As the only exchange founded to represent the needs of market participants, expanding into a new asset class allows us to provide meaningful benefits to an even broader range of investors,” said CEO Jonathan Kellner.
“Over the past few months, we have worked closely with our members to identify and develop concepts to enhance and evolve the suite of risk controls typically provided by an options exchange to better manage risk,” said Chief Operating Officer Tom Fay. “MEMX is fortunate to take a greenfield approach, which affords the opportunity to promote preferred methods, offer extremely flexible scoping, and provide innovative protection mechanisms for our clients.”
Kellner added, “Member feedback has been invaluable in determining how MEMX Options will add value to the exchange landscape. As we progress, we look forward to lending our voice to help advance key issues in the US equity options markets.”
Since launching in the fall of 2020, MEMX has quickly grown to over 4% market share and has become a significant source for liquidity in U.S cash equities. In addition, MEMX has proposed a series of common-sense equity market structure proposals, such as round lot and tick size reform. Recently, the exchange unveiled significantly lower pricing for its market data products than comparable products at competing exchanges.
