ETrade Financial, the electronic broker, is to acquire BrownCo, the online brokerage service owned by JP Morgan for $1.6bn (€1.3bn), its third acquisition in the past two months, and latest evidence of the rapid consolidation in the online brokerage market.

In August, E*Trade bought Harrisdirect, a rival online broker, for $700m and Kobren Insight Management, a Masachussetts-based asset management firm.