…“Deirdre is a true expert in public market structure, regulation, and products, with a particular strength in European markets. Her experience will be extremely valuable to Aquis as we continue on our journey to become the leading exchange services group in Europe,” said chair of Aquis Exchange Niki Beattie. “It is a testament to the growing profile of Aquis that we have been able to attract a candidate of such quality to our Board.”…

Europe should learn lessons from the US when creating an EU consolidated tape, a study undertaken on behalf of the European Commission has concluded.

Market Structure Partners, which conducted the report, recommended the Commission moves ahead with forming a post-trade EU tape for equity and debt markets with legislative changes to require the data to be consolidated in law. …

“A study undertaken on behalf of the European Commission recommends the creation of a single EU consolidated tape provider for financial market data….

The study, conducted by Market Structure Partners, contends that a consolidated tape that could save end investors billions of euros can be built for as little as €11 million with annual running costs of between €7-€9 million.

Set up and running costs could be funded by a fee levied on trading venues and systematic internalisers.

Niki Beattie, CEO off MSP, says: “It’s scary to hear the stories of so many market participants struggling without good data. Asset managers who manage trillions of euros of assets on behalf of investors say they have sub-optimal data with which to do their jobs, risk managers of even the largest firms speak of the difficulty of monitoring the markets without consolidated data and regulators struggle to compile data sets to undertake basic regulatory calculations and perform the required oversight.” …”

LONDON (Reuters) – A pan-European Union record of stock and bond trades would cost 11 million euros (£10.02 million) to build and save investors billions, a study commissioned by the bloc said on Wednesday.

A record, known as a “consolidated tape” or CT, would collate prices and volumes of shares and bonds traded on multiple platforms to help investors make better decisions, and provide regulators with improved data to spot market abuses. …

“There is high demand for CT data and the benefits of delivering the data clearly outweigh the cost of implementing it,” the study by [Market Structure Partners] consultants said. …

“An EU-backed report has called for a new self-regulatory body to track equities and debt trades and impose fines on exchanges and brokers that provide poor data, in an effort to bolster the region’s capital markets in the wake of the UK’s departure from the bloc.

A so-called consolidated tape, bundling together data from Europe’s patchwork of more than 30 exchanges and trading venues, has long been a goal of Brussels.

But the new report, by UK consultancy Market Structure Partners, suggests for the first time that enhancing this with the power to levy fines would take the EU closer to the US model for regulating market data.

“Being able to enforce the standards, not just technical but operational, and rules is critical if Europe wants to succeed in building deeper capital markets,” said the consultancy’s chief executive Niki Beattie, who wrote the report. …”

…”This is a wake-up call that the status quo is no longer the way forward,” said Niki Beattie, chief executive of consultant Market Structure Partners…

…The Italian operations generated 14% of all LSE revenue last year, according to Bloomberg data, and allow the U.K. group to keep a foothold in the European Union.

“I would have thought the LSE would want to hang onto it in a post-Brexit world,” said Niki Beattie, founder of Market Structure Partners.

Still, the LSE could have its hand forced. …

…LSE-Refinitiv is also different to other megadeals in the exchange sector like Deutsche Boerse AG and LSE’s attempted merger in 2017, according to Ortiz. It’s hard to tell how regulators will define the markets and that will determine where the combined entity may have market power, he said.

But Niki Beattie, founder of Market Structure Partners, said that “exchanges have continuously underestimated the regulatory scrutiny of their proposed deals.” “It seems highly likely that it could have happened again and that the process will go to a second stage,” she said. “Regulators have gained more and more experience in looking at exchange related deals over the last decade and data has also become an increasing focus.”

…Niki Beattie, founder of Market Structure Partners, a UK consultancy, said volatile markets drew in institutions, market makers and retail investors alike to meet on public exchanges. “It just becomes a circular effect. All these people want to meet somewhere and the [exchange] is the best place,” she said. …

…”Laddishness is a by-product of a physical trading floor,” said Niki Beattie, chief executive of consultant Market Structure Partners. “The laddishness comes out of markets being unmodernised.” Supporters, who tend to be the trading members…