FINBOURNE Technology recently participated in a tender process, against a number of industry peers, including Ediphy – however not Propellant.digital as previously identified – to become the technology infrastructure provider for the Bloomberg, MarketAxess and Tradeweb initiative, to build a consolidated tape (CT) for fixed income in Europe.
“We’re pleased to announce that we have now won the tender to work with these leading firms,” it reported in a press statement. “At FINBOURNE, our mission is to reduce operational complexity and increase efficiency and transparency across capital markets, through our Modern Financial Data Stack. We believe a CT would play a key role in achieving this and it is why we’ve spent significant time collaborating with capital markets firms, regulators and industry bodies, to collectively understand the data, its quality and how to deliver a resilient and practical CT to the market.” The consolidated tape in Europe, a post-trade tape of bond pricing data, mandated by the European Commission, is seen by many as a necessary benchmark for bond pricing. An equivalent in the US has existed since 2004.
A recent study by capital markets consultancy, Adamantia, working with institutions including Barclays, BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole CIB, Deutsche Bank Group, Natixis CIB and Société Générale, assessed the viability of the European Consolidated Tape (CT), claimed that the costs would amount to €7.5 million to build the technology and €6 million annual running costs. This was questioned by some vendors. The announcement of a partnership between commercial rivals Bloomberg, MarketAxess and Tradeweb raised eyebrows, although the need for a single tape rather than multiple competing tapes has been born out by the success of the US tape.
“Facilitating change is integral to our mission and in everything we do. It is the driving force behind the achievements, ambition and value creation our employees deliver,” wrote Finbourne. “Our selection further validates our modern, cloud-based, API-first technology and our ability to deliver critical data access and transparency.” Bloomberg, MarketAxess and Tradeweb are expected to be providing additional information on the initiative’s progress in due course.
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