The talks are at a preliminary stage, the paper said, quoting people familiar with the situation, and it is not yet clear just what sort of tie-up is being discussed.

But the report came a week after the London and Frankfurt stock exchanges said they would merge to create the biggest European stock market and link up with the US technology-heavy Nasdaq market in a global trading platform.The prospect of a rival transatlantic alliance between three other European stock markets and the NYSE would dash investors' hopes of the various players resolving their differences to create a fully-fledged pan-European bourse as had been originally planned.

The new Frankfurt-London bourse, to be called iX International Exchanges, is to be completed this year and will handle 53 per cent of total European share trading volume. Euronext will be smaller than iX, but has said it will represent some 55 to 60 per cent of the London-Frankfurt exchange's size.