Managed Funds Association, a representative body for the global alternative asset management industry, has called for the swift implementation of a properly calibrated consolidated tape in the European Union in a comment letter to the European Securities and Markets Authority today.
The letter is in response to the consultation package on technical standards related to consolidated tape providers and data reporting service providers, as well as assessment criteria for the CTP selection procedure.
Bryan Corbett, MFA’s President and CEO, commented: “Successfully implementing a consolidated tape in the EU will enhance capital markets, improve the bloc’s economic competitiveness, and drive investment into Europe.
“It is important to properly calibrate the consolidated tape so market participants can benefit from access to a ‘golden source’ of timely and accurate data.”
MFA’s letter argues that implementing a well-structured CT in the EU will improve access to timely and accurate market data, while also benefitting EU capital markets and economic competitiveness. This market data is important to alternative asset managers’ investment strategies and operations. Alternative asset managers use the data to execute complex trading strategies, monitor execution quality, meet regulatory reporting requirements and determine asset valuation.
In the letter, MFA emphasises that a properly calibrated CT must provide fairly priced and reliable data and have flexible offerings: “For the EU CT to be successful, MFA urges ESMA to require that the CT provide, in addition to fair pricing and reliable data, flexibility in CT offerings so that managers need only subscribe to the data sets that they need for their own pre-defined uses.
“No manager should be obligated to accept an “all or nothing” option to subscribe to the CT, but rather, MFA urges that the CTP offer “a la carte” pricing where managers can determine the data sets, they need and subscribe to those CT class(es) accordingly. It is important for MFA members that the CT be successful: despite the fact that managers today obtain trade data from other sources, and any CT will necessarily be competing with the legacy data sources currently in use, a consolidated “golden source” of trade data for fixed income, equities, and fixed income will greatly enhance the ability of subscribers such as private funds to perform important risk, reporting, and compliance functions”.
