Steffen Schubert is charged with one of the most difficult jobs in the European securities industry – to create a leading low-cost electronic pan-European trading platform and settlement system.

But Schubert does not have the weighty name of Europe's traditional stock exchanges behind him. Neither is he part of the consortium-backed Tradepoint, the Neuer Markt-dominated EuroNM, the flourishing brand name of Nasdaq or the ambitious OM Group in Stockholm, now partnered with Morgan Stanley Dean Witter.