Google Cloud, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, and UBS, a Swiss bank, have collaborated to support a bid to operate the United Kingdom’s real-time transaction record for bond markets, as disclosed by the fixed income technology firm spearheading the initiative to Reuters.

In the previous year, British regulators introduced proposals to establish a “consolidated tape” that would aggregate market data across stock and bond markets, with the initial launch of a bond data feed, with the aim of assisting investors in identifying the most advantageous opportunities and enhancing the attractiveness of UK capital markets.

The European Union has enacted a law that mandates trading platforms to provide price data for bonds and stocks to an operator, in exchange for a fee, a practice long established on Wall Street.

The bond trading landscape is characterized by fragmentation across various venues, often conducted bilaterally instead of through exchanges, which hampers price transparency and gives certain market participants an informational advantage.

Last month, the Financial Conduct Authority of the UK announced plans to initiate a tender process by the end of 2024 to select a firm to manage a bond tape, with expectations for it to be operational by late 2026.

Ediphy, a technology provider based in London, announced on Wednesday the launch of fairCT in collaboration with several firms, including Cboe Global Markets, FactSet, and TP ICAP, to serve as the UK tape operator.

Following earlier attempts to establish a regulatory framework that did not succeed, Chris Murphy, CEO of Ediphy and former head of UBS' Global FX, Rates, and Credit business, expressed increased confidence in the viability of a tape.

Ediphy has chosen to collaborate with various industry stakeholders, including Google's cloud subsidiary, for data storage, as Murphy informed Reuters.

He emphasized the importance of avoiding optimization that favors specific market interests.

Murphy refrained from disclosing whether any participating firms had a financial interest in the project.

While regulators and investors generally endorse the idea of a tape, exchanges have resisted it to protect their profitable data, and banks and asset managers argue that trades are essential for generating data.

Murphy noted that British regulators must ensure the bond tape does not fail by making it affordable and preventing delays in data submission from certain participants.

He remarked on the necessity of achieving a proper balance between incentives and regulations.