Citigroup has completed its memberships of developed market stock exchanges in Europe, Middle East and Africa by becoming a remote member of the Spanish stock exchange.

Citi is the first international firm to become a non-settling remote member of the BME since the introduction of new Spanish regulations. The bank can now access the Spanish equity markets from its London office and use a third party for clearing.

Dan Mathews, head of market structure for equities at Citi, told Markets Media: “Becoming a remote member of BME allows us to reduce latency by removing the the third party broker in the middle of the process. We can now trade on the BME and MTFs from London using our centralised algorithmic and smart order router technology.”

Market participants have estimated that approximately 70% of order flow into the Spanish market comes from overseas.

“The Spanish market is our seventh largest in terms of European  market in terms of volume processed electronically,”said Mathews. “It completes our build-out in developed markets which gives Citi an advantage as few international banks have so many direct memberships.”

The bank is now a a direct member of 16 European stock exchanges in addition to pan-European multilateral trading facilities.

“Citi  has a number of branches and offices in emerging markets so can leverage our local presence to access markets where only local exchange membership is supported and we are adding remote memberships as they open up. For example, the Prague Stock Exchange has recently allowed remote memberships so we are working with them to implement direct access and membership from our London hub,” he added.

Mathews said the bank is now focusing on connecting to emerging markets.

Jorge Yzaguirre, director of the BME Equities said in a statement: “The new membership category will allow a quick and easy connection to the market and we are confident that this development will have a positive impact on the volumes and liquidity of all the securities listed on the Spanish Stock Exchange.”

The market share held by MTFs in Spanish equities has increased from 8% in 2012 to 27% this year according to Bats Trading Market Data.