By Flora McFarlane.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has granted approval to Trax and Tradeweb as Approved Publication Arrangement (APA) for transparency and reporting under the new MiFID II regime.
Trax and Tradeweb, among the first to be approved by the FCA, already have a number of buy-side and sell-side firms using their services ahead of the January 2018 incoming regulatory changes.
MarketAxess's Trax, which estimates that it processes approximately 65% of all fixed income transactions in Europe as part of its post-trade service offering, offers the Trax Transparency Solution on the Trax Insight platform.
Trax Insight incorporates pre-and post-transparency solutions, which will meet MiFID II requirements, including quote publication, Systematic Internaliser (SI) determination and instrument liquidity classification.
“Trax Insight has been helping buy- and sell-side firms actively test their readiness for MiFID II trade and transaction reporting since November 2016”, said Geoffrey Vander Linden, head of transparency solutions at the MarketAxess-owned data and services provider.
Tradeweb announced that the FCA had authorised its APA for MiFID II trade reporting on 24 August 2018. Tradeweb launched its service in December of 2016 and already reports that it manages around 60% of OTC non-equity trading volumes from the sell-side.
Simon Maisey, global head of business development, added in a statement, “Buy-side firms have shown interest in our ‘Assisted Reporting’ service, enabling them to comply without having to set up direct connectivity”.
APAs provide the service of publishing trade reports on behalf of firms. MiFID II requires ‘off venue’ prices to be published through an APA, which ensures investment firms meet their obligations under Articles 20 and 21 of MiFIR.
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