A Cross-Industry Consensus on the EU Equity Consolidated Tape Proposal - Statement of Principles

EFAMA, AFME, BVI and Cboe agreed on a set of 11 Principles. 

The provision of an appropriately constructed EU Equities Consolidated Tape (“CT”) will democratise access to equities (as proposed by the EU Commission) for all investors, regardless of resources or sophistication, with a comprehensive and standardised view of EU equities prices.

• By making pan-EU data available to consumers via simplified licensing and harmonised technical arrangement, a CT will contribute to the creation of a truly pan-European market, in line with the goals of the EU Commission’s Capital Markets Union (“CMU”). Linking EU markets to create a single investible universe will drive the growth of large and small EU equity markets, for the benefit of issuers, investors, exchanges and other intermediaries.

• A CT will enhance the resilience of EU markets to technical failure of any single venue by enabling trading continuity through a robust and trusted consolidated price and consolidated “market status”, which can be leveraged in the event of an outage, facilitating increased investor trust and confidence as it relates to the maintenance of fair and orderly European capital markets.

• An appropriately constructed CT would also reduce the complexity and associated costs arising from fragmented and variable market data licensing practices across EU venues. This in turn would substantially increase the number of market data users, thus investors, with access to pan-EU data, increasing the visibility of issuers listed in every EU market.