The cost of market data has long been an irritant to the investment industry. New guidance from the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) aims to help address the issue.
ESMA published a consultation paper that sets out draft guidelines on market data obligations under the latest version of the region’s market rules, known as MiFID II.
Specifically, the paper proposes guidance on the requirement to “publish market data on a reasonable commercial basis,” and the requirement to make market data available for free following a 15-minute delay.
The new guidance follows an effort to reduce the cost of market data to the industry. Firms must acquire market data to meet their best execution and trading oversight obligations, and the industry has complained that exchanges and other trading venues overcharge for data.
“The provision of market data is essential for market participants to obtain a desired overview of trading activity,” the paper said.
“Therefore, MiFID II introduced provisions to ensure that market data is available to market participants in an easily accessible, fair and non-discriminatory manner, to decrease the average cost of the market data and to make data available to a wider range of market participants.”
ESMA said that the proposed guidelines are intended to ensure that the new MiFID II obligations on market data are applied uniformly.
The consultation on the proposed guidance ends Jan. 11, 2021. ESMA intends to publish final guidance by the second quarter of 2021.