FCA Launches UK Bond Consolidated Tape With Real-Time Trade View

The UK Financial Conduct Authority says investors and market participants can now access a single, real-time view of prices and trading activity across the UK bond market, following the launch of a bond consolidated tape operated by ETS Connect UK.

The FCA said the service brings together post-trade transparency data for bonds admitted to trading on UK venues. It launches after UK bond market transparency changes took effect in December 2025, with the regulator pointing to a sharp increase in real-time reporting across corporate and government bond trading.

The service starts with 98% market coverage of in-scope bond trading, according to the FCA. Exchange-traded notes and exchange-traded commodities are outside the service scope. ETS Connect UK will operate the tape under a five-year contract supervised by the FCA.

Why it matters

For fixed-income traders, fragmented post-trade data can make it harder to judge liquidity, recent execution levels, and fair pricing. A consolidated tape should make the UK bond market easier to monitor, especially for traders comparing execution quality across venues and liquidity providers.

Better transparency can also improve transaction-cost analysis. That matters for active bond traders, wealth platforms, and multi-asset brokers that need cleaner data to support best-execution oversight.

What to watch next

The FCA said it is also working on a consolidated tape for equities. Traders should watch whether the bond tape becomes a practical benchmark for execution review, and whether the future equity tape creates similar visibility for UK share trading.