The latest review of the Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (MiFIR) has achieved only “limited progress”, especially when it comes to benefits to European UCITS ETFs, said the European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA). In its recently published Market Insights report, the organisation stated that “the European Commission’s ongoing effort to establish a European real-time consolidated tape (for both pre- and post-trade data) should be supported further”.
The development of the European ETF market has been hindered “by the present fragmentation of liquidity and related transaction price information from listing venues across different jurisdictions”, resulting in “shallower pools of secondary market liquidity for ETF shares compared to other global domiciles, notably the US”. EFAMA is of the opinion that a European pre- and post-trade consolidated tape could be the answer to these issues.
In addition, a consolidated tape could also “unlock several tangible benefits for product issuers and investors alike, all while growing the European ETF market and attracting more non-EU investors to the UCITS ETF label.
Such a change would be timely for European ETFs, considering that net assets of these funds have more than doubled between 2018 and 2022, growing from €624 billion to €1,237 billion. Despite recent years having been rather volatile ones, “yearly net flows of equity and bond UCITS ETFs have been consistently positive in the last five years, demonstrating resilience despite market turmoil”.