Bloomberg in Joint Venture for European Fixed Income Consolidated Tape

Bloomberg, MarketAxess and Tradeweb have signed a joint venture agreement, to establish an independent company for the purpose of participating in the public procurement procedure to become the fixed income consolidated tape provider (CTP) in the European Union, all subject to relevant regulatory approvals. According to a story in MarketsMedia news, the parties have appointed Neil Ryan to lead the CTP initiative. Ryan is an industry veteran with over 30 years in various senior positions across the public and private sectors and has experience in the fixed income space. He will focus on producing a prototype that uses the expertise of the firms in fixed income markets and trade reporting, to be able to deliver a consolidated tape (CT) that will provide transparency and access to “robust, reliable” data. The parties report that the initiative reflects their combined desire “to improve the fixed income ecosystem and make a meaningful investment in winning the tender for the European bond CT.” Ryan commented, “The time has come to provide the European fixed income markets with a consolidated tape that is led by an initiative with deep experience in low-latency data processing, cleansing, consolidation and publishing within a regulated framework. Our motivation is to improve transparency and spur electronification in the fixed income space. Our end goal is a cost-effective CT that treats both data contributors and consumers fairly, while enabling open and impartial access to meaningful and helpful data using existing infrastructure.” FINBOURNE Technology, a cloud-based financial data management firm, has been selected by the firms as the technology infrastructure provider to build and operate the CT for the JV company. FINBOURNE’s appointment was the culmination of an evaluation process, which considered critical compliance, operational, technical and security aspects of a fit-for-purpose CT. FINBOURNE will now work closely with the joint initiative to demonstrate the capabilities and features of their proposed CT platform.