18 European buy-side firms, including Union, Generali, Invesco, Legal and General, Schroders and Baillie Gifford, have today declared their full support for the European Parliament’s proposal on the Equities Consolidated Tape.  In a letter to policymakers, they state that only an Equities/ETFs tape that delivers data in real-time and that includes pre-trade data in the form of 5 layers of best bid and offer, will meet with the necessary market demand to make the Equities/ETFs Consolidated Tape commercially viable.  A reasonably priced tape is also a precondition for success, they argue.  The consolidated tape, as with all market data feeds, should be available on a Reasonable Commercial Basis.  There is only one area where the EP text could have done better and that is on governance.  A robust governance framework should be outlined from the start to ensure that decisions governing policies and fees, data content, and speed and connectivity are made by a broad group of market participants, including the data user community.

The European buy-side urges the co-legislators to seize this opportunity to take the leap to modernize Europe’s capital market infrastructure, and by so doing ensure that our capital markets continue to grow and attract both domestic-EU investment and global investment flows.