The Alternative Investment Market, for instance, is a unit of the London Stock Exchange and it uses all the surveillance resources and trading facilities of the Exchange. Similarly, the Canadian Dealing Network is a division of the Toronto Stock Exchange although unlike AIM, it has its own independent trading and surveillance system. The newly established Le Nouveau Marche Marche or the New Market in France is also owned by the Paris Bourse.

OTC markets that are established independently of the national exchange but are set up by the relevant national dealers' associations include Nasdaq, which even before operating a market, was first and foremost the National Association of Securities Dealers, a self-regulatory organisation. Similarly, Jasdaq, which is operated by the Japan OTC Securities Co. Ltd., is a company owned by the Japan Securities Dealers Association (JSDA).

There are many reasons why this new market should be separate from the KLSE, the more important being:

• it is a 'higher risk' market because the companies which will be admitted will not have much of an operational history, and in the extreme may not even have commenced business operations;
• the market will operate under a full disclosure-based regulatory environment;
• market intermediaries like the brokers, advisers, underwriters etc. will have to assume new roles and responsibilities which are distinct from the main market, the KLSE, as well as higher standards of compliance and disclosure;
• market intermediaries will be held to higher standards of sales practices, and a stringent application of the 'know your client and product' rule;
• participants in the new market will not be limited to the existing stockbroking industry; and
• the trading system will incorporate elements of both order-driven and quote-driven systems.