Senior executives at a number of US-based ETF companies have agreed to launch the National Exchange Traded Funds Association (NETFA), an independent national trade association that aims to represent and promote the US ETF industry.

John Hyland, Chairman of NETFA.

The focus of the NETFA will be to educate institutional and retail investors, as well as the adviser community, on the benefits and uses of ETFs.

NETFA will provide industry statistics and commentary on ETF-related issues to the financial media, and advance industry issues with regulators, government agencies and interested third parties.

“In the 20 years since the first US ETF launched, the industry has grown to over $1.2 trillion in assets, over 1400 funds, and approximately 2 dozen different issuers. This is an ideal time for the industry to establish its own industry trade group to represent and promote the ETF sector,” stated the new Chairman of NETFA, John Hyland. Hyland is the Chief Investment Officer of United States Commodity Funds.

NETFA’s new Vice-Chairman, Adam Patti, the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of IndexIQ, added: “Once an industry sector achieves a certain scale, it can no longer depend on ad-hoc efforts by individual companies, or the efforts of non-ETF industry groups, to represent itself to the public or to the regulators. This is the first step in a long journey to establish a professional and coordinated approach to the topics of investor education and industry representation.”

Membership in NETFA will be open to any ETF issuer or sponsor. There is also a class of membership for firms that are active in the ETF industry, but are not issuers of ETFs.