The next piece of the UK landscape is already taking shape. The FCA has now established the framework for an equities consolidated tape and is moving towards procurement, with the provider expected to be named in mid 2027.

Beyond equities, however, there is an obvious question: what comes next?

Derivatives are a particularly interesting part of that discussion. The UK has already reformed its post-trade transparency regime for OTC derivatives. But unlike the EU, it does not currently have plans for a consolidated derivatives tape.

The EU is moving ahead. ESMA has selected Etrading Software as the applicant to operate the EU consolidated tape for OTC derivatives. Subject to authorisation, we are working towards launching that service in June 2027.

That creates an interesting divergence. The UK is one of the world’s most important centres for derivatives trading, yet the EU is currently on course to establish consolidated derivatives transparency first.

The question for the UK is whether the global nature of OTC derivatives means that consolidated derivatives data could also deliver useful outcomes for UK participants -and whether the industry should now begin a more detailed discussion about the use cases that would support the delivery of such a tape.

Why derivatives transparency matters to the buy-side

One question we frequently encounter is how useful a derivatives tape will actually be to asset managers.

The transparency regimes naturally concentrate on the more standardised and liquid parts of the derivatives market. In interest-rate swaps, for example, that means benchmark tenors rather than the bespoke transactions that an institutional investor might execute.

At first sight, that can appear to limit the relevance of consolidated data to the buy-side. Many asset managers use swaps that are tailored to the particular duration, cash-flow or risk-management requirements of their portfolios.

But bespoke does not mean disconnected from the benchmark market.

A dealer pricing a bespoke swap will typically reference the underlying benchmark curve and adjust for the characteristics of the particular transaction. For an asset manager, visibility into transactions in those benchmark instruments can therefore provide an important reference point against which the pricing of its own transaction can be assessed.

In other words, a derivatives tape does not need to contain an identical transaction to every trade undertaken by an investor to be useful. By providing greater visibility into the instruments from which bespoke products are priced, the tape can facilitate a more informed starting point for price discovery, transaction-cost analysis and execution oversight.

That is one of the areas we expect the European tape to illuminate once real-world consolidated data becomes available.

The next conversation

The experience of the UK bond tape demonstrates that fragmented OTC market data can be brought together into a comprehensive, accessible and high-quality consolidated view.

The FCA’s work on equities will extend that principle into another important asset class. The logical next conversation is whether derivatives should eventually follow.

We are already hearing interest from UK market participants in understanding what the UK’s longer-term plans might be. As Europe moves towards launching its derivatives tape, that conversation is likely to become more prominent.

There is no need to prejudge what the UK model should look like. Indeed, the experience of the EU derivatives tape should provide valuable evidence about use cases, data quality and market demand.

But the UK now has an opportunity to start that discussion from a position of strength. Having demonstrated that consolidated transparency can work for bonds, the next question is where consolidated transparency can create value next.