Investors have been calling for a consolidated tape in Europe, which gives them aggregated data on trading volumes and prices throughout the region in one place, for more than a decade without success. However, there is now optimism that a useful consolidated tape will be developed in the coming years as regulators have been pushing for increased transparency and legislators want to grow the European equity market ecosystem and attract investment by reducing trading costs.

Jim Kaye, executive director at FIX Trading Community, told Markets Media  there has historically been some skepticism about the value of a consolidated tape but market participants now appear to be more comfortable with the concept and see how it can be genuinely useful.

“There are frictions to efficient trading in equities and fixed income due to the difficulty of getting data in one place,” Kaye added. “We have seen in the past that when you take those frictions away, the markets get bigger.”

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