European Union leaders have reached a provisional agreement with the European Parliament on changes to the EU's trading rules that will give investors better access to market data.
The revision of the Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation and Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II, which together regulate investment services and financial markets activities in the EU, is aimed at making market data consolidated accross EU.
Currently, trading data is scattered across multiple platforms, stock exchanges and investment banks, making it difficult for investors to access information such as the price of instruments and the volume and time of transactions.
The revision agreed on late Thursday will establish EU "consolidated tapes" or centralized data feeds for different assets that will bring together market data provided by platforms on which financial instruments are traded in real time.
The provisional political agreement means the consolidated tape rules still need to be formally adopted by both the European Council and the European Parliament.
