Web Bonds has decided to extend its services to equities and has recognised a need in the French marketplace for after-hours trading. A significant number of transactions that go through brokers come in after normal trading hours, hence the enthusiasm of ConSors, E-cortal and SelfTrade for the new platform. Yves Naccache, chief executive officer of Consors France, commented: 'Thirty-percent of our orders come in after the market closes. This will increase the volume of trades because so many of our customers only place trades after their jobs.'

Alban de Clermont-Torrerre, chief executive of Web Bonds, said: 'The Paris Bourse (now called Euronext Paris) has said that it wants to extend trading hours but has postponed it until 2002. It doesn’t make sense for a big market to do it because it is expensive and its clients are primarily institutional, who are not interested in this. It’s the retail investors that want to use this.' He emphasised that the ECN will not compete with the Paris Bourse because it will only offer trading after hours.

Charles Beigbeder, head of Self Trade, said he was particularly interested in Web Bonds’ project because it was being initiated by a third-party, as opposed to another online broker. He commented: 'To create the liquidity, it has to be created by someone that is not an online broker or else no other firms would take part because it’s the competition. If that were not the case we would have done it ourselves.'

Web Bonds plans to launch the platform in January with four brokers and three market makers. Mr de Clermont-Torrerre said that 90 per cent of French brokers have said that they want to be connected to the marketplace and he expects all French online brokers to participate. At least seven are currently in talks with a view to participating.

Initially the ECN, to be called Web 18:22, will offer trading from 18:00-22:00, but Web Bonds eventually expects to offer Saturday trading after the initial launch. Also, Web 18:22 will begin by just providing access to the CAC 40 Index, but will add blue-chip stocks once the system is up and running. Mr de Clermont-Torrerre said: 'We want to make sure that everything is up and works before adding extra securities.'

Although there is great enthusiasm for the project, ING Ferri is not yet convinced that there is a market for after-hours trading and has yet to commit itself to the platform. Fabrice Coalle, deputy manager of the online division of ING Ferri, stated: 'We are not sure that there is interest from retail customers and that it would provide significant volumes.'