Nine global investment banks today announced that their new information service, TheMarkets.com, had begun full-scale operations, providing institutional investors direct, customizable access to their equity research and analysis, new-issue information and full Web site content in a single Web-based service.

TheMarkets.com is owned by Credit Suisse First Boston, Deutsche Bank, The Goldman Sachs Group, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Salomon Smith Barney, JP Morgan Chase, Lehman Brothers and UBS Warburg. Multex.com Inc. is the application service provider for the site, providing the technological infrastructure and web hosting services.

“Our launch heralds a significant change in the way Wall Street delivers its intellectual content to the institutional community,” said David Eisner, CEO of TheMarkets.com. “For the first time, institutional investors have exclusive, direct access to the full range of proprietary research, tools, and capital markets information of these leading investment banks.”

Eisner said TheMarkets.com starts full-scale operations with multiple users at 150 of the largest investment management firms, many of whom have been testing the service over the last several months. These initial client firms have a total of more than US$3 trillion under management. The service, developed exclusively for institutional investors, offers access to the research on nearly 12,000 equities followed by over 4,000 analysts at the nine firms.