Goldman Sachs Group Inc has endorsed IEX Group Inc, the trading platform that seeks to provide solutions to the shortcomings of the US stock market, Bloomberg News reported.

The approval for the platform which has only been operational for the past five months was enshrined in a memo sent by one of the largest traders in the world to its equities arm. Goldman Sachs said the markets would benefit if IEX would get "critical mass" even if this would translate to a lowering of the volume of its Sigma X dark pool, the report said.

The memo, a copy of which was obtained by Bloomberg News, said in part, "We view IEX's core mission as simplifying an overly complex market structure through a transparent rule set, minimal number of order types, and most significantly, a speed buffer that intentionally slows down trading on their market. GS has a similar ideology."

Brad Katsuyama, IEX Chief Executive Officer, and other former traders of RBC Capital Markets Llc established the platform to serve as a "market that works for investors." It particularly aims to safeguard long-term investors from predatory trading practices employed by some high-frequency traders, the report said.

One of the solutions that IEX employs to achieve this end is not paying traders rebates. This practice, more popularly known as maker-taker, is used by other platforms to encourage trading on some of their exchanges. However, those against this practice said maker-taker facilitates unnecessary trades and gives an incentive to brokers to put more importance on the rebates they will get instead of upholding their primary responsibility to obtain the best prices for their clients, the report said.

IEX only takes up a small portion of the market to date. However, information from its website revealed that from 9.1 million in January, the average number of shares traded on the platform went up to 14.7 million last month, the report said.