The founding members of The Portal Alliance are BofA Merrill Lynch, Citi, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, The Nasdaq OMX Group, UBS and Wells Fargo Securities.

The Portal Alliance will commence working with issuers, investors, broker-dealers and third-party service providers specialising in shareholder tracking and settlement services to enhance the efficiency of trading and transfer of 144A equity securities to be included in the Portal Alliance platform.

It intends to expand to meet growth in the 144A equity market by ultimately providing issuers of 144A equity securities and QIBs an electronic over-the-counter trade negotiation system, a broad suite of trade data generated by the Portal Alliance platform and resources to access issuer information.

"The members of The Portal Alliance believe that an institutional equity market will form an important part of the capital markets landscape in the future," says Bob McCooey, senior vice president, capital markets group, The Nasdaq OMX Group. "It is important to create an improved method for issuers and institutional investors to communicate to support expected growth in the 144A equity market."