FCA Opens Consultation on UK Equity Consolidated Tape

​The UK's Financial Conduct Authority has begun seeking feedback on plans to introduce a consolidated tape for domestic equity markets. The proposal would bring together post-trade data and venue-specific best bid and offer prices, with the aim of giving market participants a more complete picture of trading activity across the country's fragmented venues.

Equity trading in the UK is dispersed across multiple platforms—a structure that has bolstered competition but made overall liquidity harder to interpret. The FCA says the initiative is intended to improve transparency, support market growth and provide investors with easier access to core trading information. It also expects the tape to help benchmark UK liquidity against other major financial centres such as the US and EU.

Simon Walls, the FCA's Interim Executive Director of Markets, said the new framework would make information from various venues more accessible, noting that the current landscape can make "overall liquidity harder to assess."

The regulator plans to review the system two years after it launches, assessing whether changes to the scope of pre-trade data are needed. The FCA currently expects the tape to be operational in 2027.