Background
7.1 Market data is fundamental in helping participants identify investment opportunities and evaluate positions, and is essential for price formation and best execution.
7.2 In an attempt to make data more accessible and easier to use, MiFID II requires trading venues and approved publication arrangements (APAs) to make data available on a 'reasonable commercial basis' (RCB). The RCB provision stipulates that data must be provided to the market at a reasonable fee, and made free 15 minutes after its initial publication. In an effort to improve data standards, MiFID II also set up a framework for a consolidated tape (CT), to collect unified post-trade reports for financial instruments from trading venues and APAs, and to then consolidate them into a continuous electronic live data stream.
7.3 However, the government believes that MiFID II has not achieved its aim of making standardised data easily accessible to market participants. This is because obligations such as RCB have
…