A consolidated tape is an electronic system which combines sales volume and price data from different exchanges and certain broker-dealers. It consolidates these into a continuous live feed, providing summarised data by security across all markets. 

         
                                                                        
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27 March 2024

Commission Communication, Approval of the content of a draft Commission Notice on the interpretation and implementation of the transitional provision laid down in Regulation (EU) 2024/791 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 28 February 2024 amending Regulation (EU) No 600/2014 as regards enhancing data transparency, removing obstacles to the emergence of consolidated tapes, optimising the trading obligations and prohibiting receiving payment for order flow, C(2024) 2083 final

ESMA Public Statement, Transition for the application of the MiFID II/MiFIR review, ESMA74-2134169708-7163


28 February 2024 

Regulation (EU) 2024/791 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 28 February 2024 amending Regulation (EU) No 600/2014 as regards enhancing data transparency, removing obstacles to the emergence of consolidated tapes, optimising the trading obligations and prohibiting receiving payment for order flow and Directive (EU) 2024/790 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 28 February 2024 amending Directive 2014/65/EU on markets in financial instruments


20 February 2024

MiFIR and MiFID II: Council adopts new rules to strengthen market data transparency


29 June 2023 / 18 October 2023

Capital markets union: Council and Parliament agree on proposal to strengthen market data transparency


2 March 2023

Report on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EU) No 600/2014 as regards enhancing market data transparency, removing obstacles to the emergence of a consolidated tape, optimising the trading obligations and prohibiting receiving payments for forwarding client orders (COM(2021)0727 – C9‑0440/2021 – 2021/0385(COD))

 

20 December 2022 

Council agrees negotiating mandate on proposal to strengthen market transparency:

- Regulation reviewing the Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (‘MIFIR’)

- Directive reviewing the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive ('MiFID II')

The draft regulation aims to establish a centralised database or ‘consolidated tape’, which will provide access to market data from trading venues as well as systematic internalisers and approved publication arrangements across the EU in a consolidated manner. This will improve the overall price transparency across trading venues and will provide investors with easier access to trading data.


19 December 2022 

ESMA issues positive opinion on amendments to Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/587 (RTS 1) and Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/583 (RTS 2), ESMA70-156-6261

The general objective of the reviewed RTS 1 and 2 is to clarify and improve the pre- and post-trade transparency regime for equity and non-equity instruments, in particular in view of the establishment of a consolidated tape.


9 March 2022

ESMA Letter to the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament on MiFIR Review Proposal (ESMA70-156-5299)


25 November 2021

Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EU) No 600/2014 as regards enhancing market data transparency, removing obstacles to the emergence of a consolidated tape, optimising the trading obligations and prohibiting receiving payments for forwarding client orders, COM(2021) 727 final, 2021/0385 (COD) {SEC(2021) 573 final} - {SWD(2021) 346 final} - {SWD(2021) 347 final}

 

In the US, all registered exchanges and market centres that trade listed securities send their trades and quotes to a central consolidator. This system provides real-time trade and quote information (Commission Staff Working Document of 18 May 2016, 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, p. 60).

Directive 2014/65/EU (MiFID II) provides for the possibility of establishment of a consolidated tape both for equity as well as for non-equity instruments.

European Commission’s public consultation published on 17 February 2020 on the review of the MiFID II/MiFIR regulatory framework describes the reasons for the establishment of the consolidated tape and the current state of play in the following way (p. 12):

“The EU has a competitive trading environment but investors and their intermediaries often lack a consolidated view of where financial instruments are traded, how much is traded and at what price. Except for the largest or most sophisticated market players (who can purchase consolidated data pertaining to the different execution venues from data vendors or build their own aggregated view of the market), investors have no overall picture of a fragmented trading landscape: while the trading often used to be concentrated on one national exchange, notably in equities, investors can now choose between multiple competing trading venues, which results in a more fragmented and hence more complex trading landscape. At the same time, fragmentation per se should not be discarded as it is inherent to the introduction of alternative trading systems (MTFs, OTFs) which has led to a significant increase in competition between trading venues with positive effects on trading costs and increased execution quality.

[...]

In order to optimise the trading experience, a single price comparison tool consolidating trading data across the EU - referred to as the consolidated tape (‘CT’) - would help brokers to locate liquidity at the best price available in the European markets, and increase investors’ capacity to evaluate the quality of their broker’s performance in executing an order. A European CT could also be one major step towards “democratising” access to “market data” so that all investors can see what the best price is to buy or sell a particular share. A CT may not only prove useful for equities but also for exchange-traded funds (ETFs), bond or other non-equity instruments. Practical experience with a consolidated tape is already available in the United States, where a consolidated tape has been mandated for shares (consolidating pre- and post-trade data) and bonds (post-trade data).

A European CT could, for a reasonable fee, provide a real-time feed of information, not only for transactions that have taken place (post-trade information), but also for orders resting in the public markets (pre-trade information). MiFID II /MiFIR already provides for a consolidated tape framework for equity and non-equity instruments but no consolidated tape has yet emerged, for various reasons [...]”.

Also the ESMA representative on 20 April 2022 argued that when MiFID II/MiFIR came into force in 2018 “one of the key focus points was to increase transparency in the European markets. A lot has happened since then and overall the markets are definitely more transparent than they were. Nonetheless, the detailed information on trades in the different asset classes remains fragmented, being published by various trading venues and/or trade repositories. What has not emerged is a ‘consolidated tape’ – i.e. a place where all the trading that has taken places is published, easily accessible in a single location”.

ESMA believes that in order to drive forward towards a genuinely integrated European capital market, the emergence of consolidated tapes in the EU is an “indispensable step”, however, it does not appear feasible to run the procedures for the four asset classes all in parallel, hence, a staggered approach should be introduced. This would provide more time to non-prioritised asset classes (typically derivatives) to address remaining issues, for instance in relation to the format and quality of the transparency reports (ESMA – driving forward high-quality supervision and transparency in a single EU capital market, ECMI/CEPS Webinar 20 April 2022, Verena Ross, Chair, European Securities and Markets Authority, 20 April 2022, ESMA80-187-945).

ESMA submitted in September 2015 draft regulatory technical standard (RTS) specifying the scope of the equity tape.

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See also:

 

Consolidated Tape Provider (CTP)

 

Data Reporting Services Provider (DRSP)

 

Transparency

 

European Single Access Point (ESAP)

This RTS was endorsed by the Commission on 2 June 2016 and published in the EU Official Journal in 2017 (Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/571 of 2 June 2016 supplementing Directive 2014/65/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council with regard to regulatory technical standards on the authorisation, organisational requirements and the publication of transactions for data reporting services providers).

The respective non-equity scope has been set out in the ESMA's Consultation Paper of 3 October 2016 (RTS specifying the scope of the consolidated tape for non-equity financial instruments, ESMA/2016/1422).

ESMA's Final Report on the draft RTS specifying the scope of the consolidated tape for non-equity financial instruments has been published on 31 March 2017 (ESMA/2017/70-8792942901-40).

Recital 118 of MiFID II (see box) and ESMA itself acknowledge that the establishment of a non-equity consolidated tape is more difficult to implement and more complex than the equity one.

On 12 July 2019 the ESMA has published the Consultation Paper, MiFID II/MiFIR review report on the development in prices for pre- and post- trade data and on the consolidated tape for equity instruments (ESMA70-156-1065). Final Report in this regard has been published on 5 December 2019.

The provisions on the non-equity tape of Article 65(2) of MiFID II are applicable as from September 2019.

According to the European Commission Proposal of 25 November 2021 for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EU) No 600/2014 as regards enhancing market data transparency, removing obstacles to the emergence of a consolidated tape, optimising the trading obligations and prohibiting receiving payments for forwarding client orders (COM(2021) 727 final) single real-time post-trade consolidated tape per asset class will be established and the contribution of data by market data providers to the consolidated tape will be mandatory.
The intention of the MiFIR amendment is to remove the obstacles that have prevented the emergence of a consolidated tape. Among the data that the consolidated tape is expected to provide are post-trade information regarding all transactions in financial instruments. That information can be used for proving best execution by execution platforms - i.e. the requirement stipulated so far in Article 27(3) of MiFID II (Article 27(3) of MiFID II is deleted by the amendment).

 

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MiFID II, Recitals 115 - 119

 

(115) The provision of core market data services which are pivotal for users to be able to obtain a desired overview of trading activity across Union financial markets and for competent authorities to receive accurate and compre­hensive information on relevant transactions should be subject to authorisation and regulation to ensure the necessary level of quality.

(116) The introduction of approved publication arrangements (APAs) should improve the quality of trade transparency information published in the OTC space and contribute significantly to ensuring that such data is published in a way facilitating its consolidation with data published by trading venues.

(117) Now that a market structure is in place which allows for competition between multiple trading venues it is essential that an effective and comprehensive consolidated tape is in operation as soon as possible. The intro­duction of a commercial solution for a consolidated tape for equities and equity-like financial instruments should contribute to creating a more integrated European market and make it easier for market participants to gain access to a consolidated view of trade transparency information that is available. The envisaged solution is based on an authorisation of providers working along pre-defined and supervised parameters which are in competition with each other in order to achieve technically highly sophisticated and innovative solutions, serving the market to the greatest extent possible and ensuring that consistent and accurate market data is made available. By requiring all consolidated tape providers (CTPs) to consolidate data from all APAs and trading venues it will be assured that competition will take place on the basis of quality of service to clients rather than breadth of data covered. Nevertheless it is appropriate to make provision now for a consolidated tape to be put in place through a public procurement process if the mechanism envisaged does not lead to the timely delivery of an effective and compre­hensive consolidated tape for equities and equity-like financial instruments.

(118) The establishment of a consolidated tape for non-equity financial instruments is deemed to be more difficult to implement than the consolidated tape for equity financial instruments and potential providers should be able to gain experience with the latter before constructing it. In order to facilitate the proper establishment of the consolidated tape for non-equity financial instruments, it is therefore appropriate to provide for an extended date of application of the national measures transposing the relevant provision. Nevertheless it is appropriate to make provision now for a consolidated tape to be put in place through a public procurement process if the mechanism envisaged does not lead to the timely delivery of an effective and comprehensive consolidated tape for non-equity financial instruments.

(119) When determining, as regards non-equity financial instruments, the trading venues and APAs which need to be included in the post-trade information to be disseminated by CTPs, ESMA should ensure that the objective of the establishment of an integrated Union market for those financial instruments will be achieved and should ensure non-discriminatory treatment of APAs and trading venues.




quote


Keynote address – CMU and current challenges International Investors’ Conference ‘European Capital Markets’ Union and the new Green Deal, 2 December 2020, Frankfurt am Main, Germany Verena Ross ESMA Executive Director, ESMA22-103-1194


Finally, let me discuss also the market side of transparency and highlight the importance of the consolidated tape for investors. Accessibility and transparency of market data is important to ensure that markets are fair, sound and efficient. In our recent review report, ESMA found that to date, MiFID II has not delivered on its objective to reduce the cost of market data.

The fact that the cost of data has not improved was also compounded by the fact that no consolidated tape has emerged, which would provide live information on the price and size of equity trades.

While MiFID II designed the requirements that would be applicable for consolidated tape providers, it did not mandate the establishment of such an EU consolidated tape. Instead, it left its creation open to a voluntary market-led initiative, which did not materialise.

For ESMA, the main reasons why this did not happen are the limited incentives and commercial rewards to potential providers within the current regulatory framework, as well as possible competition by non-regulated entities such as data vendors.

Nonetheless, I strongly believe that the creation of a real-time consolidated tape for equities would counter concerns about the fragmented access to market data. I therefore welcome the intention of the Commission to propose the creation of a comprehensive post-trade consolidated tape for equity and equity like instruments as part of the CMU Action Plan.

In my view, there are a number of key factors that would be indispensable to the successful establishment of the consolidated tape. These include the mandatory contribution of high-quality data by trading venues and Approved Publication Arrangements (APAs), the sharing of revenues with contributing entities and a strong governance framework.

Ultimately, this is a task which will require a substantial investment of both time and resources by all parties involved, but one which will greatly benefit all market players and users (including investors) by providing a single source for price comparison.



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