Search results

The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical framework for the legal classification of trading venues in financial markets. Currently, there is no clear definition of when a trading platform should be classified as multilateral or bilateral. This paper builds a theoretical framework that will allow regulators to define the border (with its regulatory implications) between multilateral and bilateral trading venues.

The approach used for this paper focuses on looking at the different trading models available in financial markets and analyzing their key features in order to bring up recurrent aspects that have helped to build the theoretical framework.

Multilateral trading facilities would not only be systems bringing together multiple interests from third parties, but those systems bringing together multiple interests with “no discretion” (ex ante rules) vis‐à‐vis membership, admission of products to trading, and matching of interests. All trading venues that do not meet these three key requirements will be falling under the bilateral trading classification, which implies the application of fiduciary duties, such as conflicts of interest rules and best execution. The paper then advances a proposal to solve the legal classification issue in the revision of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive in Europe (MiFID). In effect, despite the claim that the Organised Trading Facility (EU) and the Swap Execution Facility (USA) would be equivalent categories, EU and US regulators, respectively, have taken divergent paths on how these venues will ultimately look.

The value of the paper is in its ability to provide a theoretical framework to something that has not been assessed in these terms previously. Today, only the SEC is trying, for the first time, to have a definition of when a RFQ model can be defined “multilateral”. This topic has been rarely discussed before in financial regulation, while it is extensively discussed in market microstructure (but on the market structure implications, rather than its regulatory and policy implications).

The purpose of this paper is to explain rule changes proposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission designed to address regulatory concerns related to “dark pools” of liquidity.

The paper explains the background and policy issues related to dark pools, discusses the SEC's amended definition of “bid” or “offer” under Regulation NMS to include “actionable indications of interest” (“actionable IOIs”), outlines a proposed reduction of the average daily trading volume threshold that triggers a public display of ATS orders from 5 percent to 0.25 percent, discusses a proposal to require an alternative trading system (“ATS”) to disclose its identity in real time on its reports of executed trades, and explains proposed size‐discovery exclusions to the changes detailed above.

The paper finds that the proposed rules represent the Commission's attempts to improve the NMS without inhibiting the use or continued technological development of trading strategies that are consistent with NMS goals.

The paper provides a clear explanation of complex market mechanisms and proposed rules by experienced financial institution and securities lawyers.

The growth of new trading opportunities, advances in technology, and investor interest in fast, cheap execution have all challenged the dominance of traditional exchanges and encouraged the development of alternative trading systems. This article explores the vigorous debate among market participants that has ensued, and outlines their various positions on how these developments should impact the existing regulatory structure.

The purpose of this paper is to consider competition’s issues between European market firms, such as Euronext, and multilateral trading facilities, following Markets in Financial Instruments Directive’s enforcement. This new domestic competition is adding to the existing international competition among financial centers. While diversification of local trading services can improve the international competitiveness of a financial center, the fragmentation of order flows can harm its attractiveness.

The theoretical setting analyzes the interaction between heterogeneous who experiment network externalities, and heterogeneous local trading services providers (alternative platforms and incumbent) in an international context. The authors compare two forms of organizations of the market: a consolidated market, and a fragmented market with alternative platforms – in both cases, in competition with a foreign universe.

The results of this study point out the importance of the trade-off between diversification and externalities. With alternative platforms entry, enhanced competition decreases fees and redistributes informed investors between the foreign market and the domestic one. The increase of domestic platforms’ number then has more complex effects on externalities (of information and liquidity). When the liquidity externalities are low, the diversification of financial platforms increases the number of investors on domestic centers. When liquidity externalities are not negligible, despite the decrease of fees, this same diversification orientates more informed investors to the foreign center.

This model is the first to analyze jointly the internal and international competition of trading platforms with heterogeneous investors.

The purpose of this paper is to scrutinise the effectiveness of four derivative exchanges’ enforcement efforts since 2007. These exchanges include the Commodity Exchange Inc. and ICE Futures US from the United States and ICE Futures Europe and the London Metal Exchange from the UK.

The paper examines 799 enforcement notices published by four exchanges through a behavioural science lens: HUMANS conceived by Hunt (2023) in Humanizing Rules: Bringing Behavioural Science to Ethics and Compliance.

The paper finds the effectiveness of the exchanges’ enforcement efforts to be a mixed picture as financial markets transition from the digital to artificial intelligence era. Humans remain a key cog in the wheel of market participants’ trading operations, albeit their roles have changed. Despite this, some elements of exchanges’ enforcement regimes have not kept pace with the move from floor to remote trading. However, in other respects, their efforts are or should be, effective, at least in behavioural terms.

The paper’s findings are arguably limited to exchanges based in Anglophone jurisdictions. The information published by the exchanges is variable, making “like-for-like” comparisons difficult in some areas.

The paper makes several recommendations that, if adopted, could help exchanges to increase the potency of their enforcement programmes.

A key aim of the paper is to shift the lens through which the debate concerning the efficacy of exchange-level oversight is conducted. Hitherto, a legal lens has been used, whereas this paper uses a behavioural lens.

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is at the center of an increasing chorus of market professionals who complain that investors are at the mercy of a system that caters to exchange specialists. While structural change may be necessary to address the NYSE’s governance issues, talk about wholesale structural change in the trading of NYSE‐listed securities is misguided. As this paper discusses, the real issue is the lack of competition among the marketplaces that trade NYSE‐listed shares. The article is intended to contribute to the market structure debate by exploring the market structure of the NYSE, the competitive environment for exchange‐listed securities, the limitations associated with the current structure, and what changes might be pursued. In particular, the author calls attention to the “trade‐through” rule, implemented through the Intermarket Trading System (ITS), which benefits the NYSE by discouraging orders from being routed to alternative marketplaces

This chapter aims the research whether the application of European Directive, Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), had any significant effects on the European Capital Markets and the progress of the European Integration. This new regulation specifies the tasks and responsibilities of the supervisory authorities of the Member State of origin and the host Member State, in order to enhance the certainty of effectiveness of cross-border transactions supervision and to reduce the risk of imposing unnecessary legal reforms from the host Member State on investment firms which perform cross-border transactions. It has been concluded, among others, that the aligning of the national regulatory approaches to a common European regulatory system is quite necessary. It is finally concluded that MiFID will contribute to reduce problems at country level as the previous experience of the Investment Services Directive, where the European investments and economies of Member States were based mainly on the level of ‘country’ and not of the ‘sector’. An effective capital entrepreneurship market is a strategically important element in the development of new and innovative businesses, encouraging entrepreneurship, increasing the productivity and maintaining high economic growth rates in Europe. Currently, European venture capital market is much less effective than that of the US market, for example. Therefore, in this area, should be specified the priorities that will lead to new initiatives.

This purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the status of e‐finance and discuss related issues and challenges. Provides data about growth of e‐finance in the last decade. Introduces advances and innovations in e‐finance and challenges facing the financial services and IT industries.

The paper employs the archival method of reviewing related literature (theoretical, applied and empirical) and organizing and presenting the topics to provide an overview of e‐finance status.

The major contributions and finding of this paper include all areas of e‐finance, application of technology to e‐finance, growth of the e‐finance in the financial services industry.

The paper provides areas of e‐finance that face many different challenges and calls for further research in a number of areas related to e‐finance technology and the interface of financial services and IT.

The paper brings all scattered information and data about e‐finance under one umbrella that would make scholars and practitioners aware of advances in e‐finance and applications of innovations and new technology to financial services provided.

The main value or contribution of this paper is bringing together most of available literature, advances, innovations, application of IT in the financial services industry and showing how organizations could benefit from such innovations. It also provides ideas to scholars for further research in this area.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate how markets in financial instruments directive (MiFID) and regulation national market system (Reg NMS) affect the competition for order flow among trading venues in, respectively, Europe and the USA.

The paper examines the differences between MiFID and Reg NMS and provides, based on market microstructure principles, insights as to their likely impact on European and the US securities markets.

Although MiFID and Reg NMS share the common objective of enhancing competition in securities markets, they adopt different provisions with respect to three issues that strongly influence the competition for order flow among trading venues. Specifically, some of the provisions set forth by the US regulation with respect to the best execution duty, the consolidation of market data and the disclosure of execution quality information appear to be more effective, compared to the European Union ones, in strengthening competition for order flow among trading venues.

Regulatory factors can only partly explain the current structure of the European and US securities markets. Technology and heterogeneity in traders' demand are other important factors that concur in shaping the European and US markets.

The degree of competition for order flow among trading venues depends on how regulations define the best execution duty, the availability of updated and consolidated pre‐trade (i.e. quotations) and post‐trade (i.e. transactions) information and the efficiency of post‐trading infrastructures.

The paper addresses issues not yet investigated and provides valuable insights for financial intermediaries, incumbent and prospective exchanges as to the competition in the securities industry, and to regulators as to the likely impact of the new regulations.

Over the past two decades, technology has revolutionised the way securities are traded. The high‐speed communications, automated execution and borderless trading made possible by technological advances pose unique challenges for securities regulators. Regulators should look carefully at how their own regulator structure can address these challenges.