CEO Open Letter: Continuing on the CTP road… 

As we approach the end of 2023, we have been reflecting on our Consolidated Tape (‘CT’) journey so far.

As you know, after an extensive tendering process in early 2023, FINBOURNE was selected as a technology partner by a consortium of three leading data and market infrastructure firms.  As the year closes, that consortium decided that they would “not form an independent company to participate” in any EU or UK CT tenders, but that they remain “independently committed to working with regulators and the industry to contribute and drive further progress towards this very important initiative”.

We agree that the CT is a transformative project and that 2024 will be an important year, with tenders from both the UK and EU expected.

FINBOURNE committed in early 2021 to this project. Rather than working in isolation to reconfigure market data infrastructure, we have taken our vision of openness and engagement seriously from the very beginning:

• We hosted our own CT Design Council to understand the issues from all market’s perspectives
• We have spent significant time and effort collaborating with capital markets firms, regulators, industry bodies
• We have published 6 detailed whitepapers – based on almost 300,000,000 transaction records and 107,632,766 FIRDS historical records – and supported regulators (the FCA’s recently published consultation paper) in their drive towards data-driven policy making

As we look forward to 2024, FINBOURNE’s focus will be on three elements:

• Continuing to drive agenda around data quality and fully supporting the intrinsic need to improve standards, practices and processes around the data that any CT will require to perform its core functions
• Working with industry partners to support a CTP that delivers the fairest approach in terms of transparency, pricing and licencing
• Continuing to develop our SaaS technology, using an API-first approach, to deliver standardised, aggregated and consolidated data to the market

Facilitating change through transparency is integral to our mission and in everything we do.  It is the driving force behind the achievements, ambition and value creation our firm delivers to our partners and clients.  We know that there are many other firms in the market that want to see that data transparency as well.

We are committed to the CT project. We will continue to contribute to its development, and we intend to be involved in a CTP going forward. We welcome all enquiries from like-minded firms in the market.

Thomas McHugh 

CEO and Co-Founder, FINBOURNE Technology