Fourteen European exchanges have formed a joint venture company to participate in the future selection process for a consolidated tape (CT) for equities in the European Union.
The participating exchanges include Athens Stock Exchange, Bucharest Stock Exchange, Budapest Stock Exchange, Bulgarian Stock Exchange, Cyprus Stock Exchange, Deutsche Boerse Group, Euronext, Luxembourg Stock Exchange, Malta Stock Exchange, Nasdaq, SIX Group, Warsaw Stock Exchange, Wiener Börse and Zagreb Stock Exchange.
The only member state not represented is Slovakia.
They said the focus will be on designing a tape to provide a “comprehensive, standardised and consistent source of market data and will seek to collaborate with regulators to develop the optimal solution.”
The initiative is part of the European Commission’s proposal for an equities tape to contribute to the development of the Capital Markets Union.
European regulators, who have long been pushing for an equities CT covering all member states, argue that a true single market cannot exist without a more integrated view of EU trading.
The tape will provide consolidated data on prices and volume of traded securities in the EU, thereby improving overall price transparency across trading venues as well as sharpen competition between trading venues.
Together with the European Single Access Point for company information (ESAP), it will give investors access to considerably improved information at a pan-European level.
A study conducted by Market Partners in 2020 contends that a consolidated tape that could save end investors billions of euros can be built for as little as €11 million with annual running costs of between €7-€9 million.
The participating exchanges, as key players in the EU’s capital markets ecosystem, are reiterating their commitment to fostering the EU’s open strategic autonomy.
The exchange initiative comes just days after Bloomberg, MarketAxess and TradeWeb selected Finbourne as the technology integrator for a forthcoming fixed income consolidated tape.
©Markets Media Europe 2023
