Bloomberg, Tradeweb win post-MiFID APA status from UK regulator
Several significant financial institutions have been granted permission to offer services as approved publication arrangements under new MiFID II regulation. Tradeweb, NEX Regulatory Reporting, Bloomberg, the London Stock Exchange’s TRADEcho and MarketAxess’ Trax are among the approved companies. The UK Financial Conduct Authority granted authorisation for publishing reports on trades' transparency for clients as part of MiFID II requirements.
Several major financial services and technology firms have been granted authorisation to operate as approved publication arrangements (APAs) for reporting under MiFID II.

Tradeweb, MarketAxess’ Trax, NEX Regulatory Reporting, Bloomberg and the London Stock Exchange’s TRADEcho all received approval from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) this week.

As APAs, those firms will be able to publish reports on trades for post-trade transparency on behalf of clients as required under the impending European regulation.

Simon Maisey, global head of business development at Tradeweb, explained its APA service has already received support from a number of financial institutions.

“More recently, buy-side firms have shown particular interest in our ‘Assisted Reporting’ service, which helps them comply with post-trade reporting obligations without having to set up direct connectivity,” he added.

At Trax, Geoffroy Vander Linden, head of transparency solutions, commented that buy- and sell-side firms have been actively testing their readiness for reporting under MiFID II since November last year.

Colin Coleman, head of NEX Regulatory Reporting, described the approval to operate as an APA as an important milestone for NEX Group.

“The use of APAs will be essential for efficient functioning under MiFID II and we strongly encourage any market participants who have not yet commenced testing to do so immediately to ensure they can continue to trade post 3 January 2018,” he said.