Direct market access (DMA) is a form of sponsored access and refers to the practice of a firm, who has access to the market as a member, to allow another third party firm to use its own systems to access the market.
It is different from direct sponsored access in which the orders of the third party are sent directly to the market through a dedicated system provided by the sponsoring member (Commission Staff Working Document Impact Assessment Accompanying the document Commission Delegated Regulation supplementing Regulation (EU) No 600/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council with regard to definitions, transparency, portfolio compression and supervisory measures on product intervention and positions {C(2016) 2860 final} {SWD(2016) 156 final}, 18.5.2016, SWD(2016) 157 final, p. 60).
See also:
Direct Electronic Access (DEA)