Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE:ICE), an operator of global exchanges and clearing houses and provider of data and listings services, has announced that ICE Data Services has expanded coverage for its Best Execution service to include sovereign and corporate bonds in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

Best Execution offers innovative analytics that meet the mounting demands of managing regulatory compliance requirements.

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Best Execution leverages ICE’s fixed income Continuous Evaluated Pricing to measure best execution, and offers a trade-by-trade measure of execution quality relative to comparable market transactions.

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The launch of Best Execution in EMEA follows yesterday’s formal completion of the exchange’s acquisition of S&P Global’s Standard & Poor’s Securities Evaluations (SPSE), and coincides with European regulators’ moves to expand transparency in fixed income securities.

In particular, Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II) formalised rules that require investment firms to maintain records quantifying the transaction quality of their counterparties.

By quantifying trade-by-trade execution quality versus comparable transactions, the independent metrics provided by Best Execution enables firms to demonstrate compliance with MiFID II requirements.

Scoring Methodology

Best Execution uses an innovative scoring methodology that allows clients to see how their trades stack up against comparable transactions across maturity, sector and issue, among others, by using a simple percentile ranking. Traders, portfolio managers and compliance officers can employ Best Execution to monitor trading activities across venues and protocols, and to conduct transaction cost analysis (TCA) in fixed income markets.

Lynn Martin, President and Chief Operating Officer of ICE Data Services, said: “At a time when regulations are playing a larger role in financial markets, Best Execution offers innovative analytics that measure the execution quality of trades and meet the mounting demands of managing regulatory compliance requirements. Built from our continuous evaluated pricing platform, Best Execution provides a new level of transparency into the fixed income markets and helps meet our clients’ expanding risk management needs.”

Background

ICE Data Services is a market leader in evaluated pricing for fixed income and international equities, with around 2.7 million daily evaluations, including a broad range of hard-to-value, thinly traded securities. The Best Execution service is one of a range of products available from ICE Data Services for traders, portfolio managers and compliance officers.