Life insurer and stockbroker Old Mutual is poised to launch the UK's first US-style electronic communications network (ECN), offering retail stockbrokers and their customers electronic trading and enabling them to deal within the market-maker's spreads.

The ECN, Market Touch, will rival the retail service providers and market makers, which currently handle the lion's share of the 60,000 retail orders traded daily on stocks listed at the London Stock Exchange. It is scheduled to launch at the end of the year.