Rise of the Intercontinental Exchange and Implications of its Merger with NYSE Euronext

This paper examines the impending merger between the IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) and NYSE Euronext against the backdrop of the current structure of the global financial services industry. The paper concludes that the merger embodies what the financial services industry is becoming and captures the model that will allow exchanges to remain competitive in today’s marketplace: mega-exchanges with broader asset classes and electronic platforms. As technology and globalization threaten their vitality, exchanges will need to continue reinventing and adapting. Increasingly over the last decade they have done so by merging and by moving, at least a part of, their operations on screen. ICE is a good model for other exchanges to follow. It has been able to establish itself as a market leader in a relatively short period of time - 13 years - and has done so by exploiting electronic trading. In arriving at its ultimate conclusion, the paper looks at ICE’s beginnings and its impressive growth, and discusses the implications of the merger by examining how issues of globalization, demutualization, fragmentation, regulation, and antitrust factor in. The paper also discusses the quandaries of the US regulatory framework (including how it is viewed internationally) and the possibility that the ICE-NYX merger will compel consolidation between the SEC and the CFTC.