The Boston Stock Exchange (BSE) announced that, effective immediately, it has discontinued the operations of the Boston Equities Exchange (BeX), an electronic stock exchange that was launched in August 2005.

The BSE said that it will continue to be active in the marketplace and will support the company’s remaining ventures including the regulation of the Boston Options Exchange.

The exchange noted that the BeX, “struggled to gain market share in large part due to the overall strength of market incumbents”. However, it says that various other ventures have continued to be successful, including LeveL, a dark-book alternative trading system.

“We are disappointed that BeX was not able to become competitive in today’s marketplace and perform as well as other ventures of the Boston Stock Exchange, but we want to emphasize that the BSE remains a committed member of the National Market System,” said Boston Stock Exchange chairman and CEO, Michael Curran.

The closure will affect 40 of the BSE’s 100 employees. Some of them will be reassigned to other ventures, some will remain on through the transition and those whose positions were eliminated will receive severance packages.