FIA EPTA agrees with ESMA’s assessment that user data fees are high and have increased over the past years. We also agree that new fees have been added and that market data policies and agreements are increasingly complex. In addition, existing rules and disclosures in relation to making certain market data available free of charge and the Reasonable Commercial Basis (RCB) provisions are not being fully complied with. In our view, increased transparency around market data cost should be the primary near-term goal. We believe it would be premature to look at further regulation of market data (e.g., through price capping) before there is more transparency on the current costs and margins on market data.
FIA EPTA supports the development of a real-time, post-trade European Consolidated Tape for the whole scope of equity instruments and equity-like instruments – and eventually expanded to additional (non-equity) instruments in the future. We believe a well-functioning, high-quality Consolidated Tape would benefit all financial markets participants and act as a catalyst for further integration of European capital markets and the realisation of an EU Capital Markets Union.
