From Combie Cryan:
MiFiD (Markets in Financial Instruments Directive) has delivered substantial benefits to European traders, most visibly with the introduction of new trading venues, leading to greater choice and competition for execution business in major European stocks. One consequence of MiFiD has been the increased complexity and cost arising from the need to see data from more venues, and indeed the greater presence and sometimes questionable quality or timeliness of over-the-counter post-trade data, much of which had never seen the light of day before MiFiD. Given this, demand for high-quality post-trade data has never been higher.
NYSE Euronext long ago saw and has been responding to this demand, offering its data products in an unbundled format so that data consumers could use “last trade” data independently of best bid and offer or market depth. Indeed, NYSE Euronext split OTC from on-exchange last-trade data. This unbundling is important as many investors, particularly fund managers, want to find the right balance between knowing where the market is at and the cost of handling high volumes of real-time data.
Now, others are following NYSE Euronext’s lead, and this is a positive development for the markets. This month, the London Stock Exchange, Deutsche Borse and NASDAQ OMX joined us in offering unbundled post-trade data, with all exchanges now offering this smaller data set at attractive prices to end users.
In addressing data quality, improving ability of investors to see consolidated data from multiple venues and providing commercial choice in how this data is consumed, including all major European exchanges committing to the free public display of market data after a 15-minute delay, it is clear that competition not only continues to benefit European investors in terms of costs and ease of access, but also provides the optimal platform for continued innovation in the market.
With the European Commission set to consider the focus of MiFiD II later this year, it will be interesting to see how policymakers balance the interests of competition and regulation as drivers of the evolution of markets.

