The increased competition witnessed in the market for executing orders for financial assets is the result of efforts to develop new solutions to the evolving needs of the investment community. The structure of market mechanisms reflects the use of contemporary technologies. Recent innovations in trading technologies involve the use of electronic networks to create value-added services and thus attract order flows away from existing trading institutions. Electronic commerce technologies can be exploited to implement highly disintermediated structures where individuals can directly trade combinations of assets with each other and settle trades on a real-time basis.