LONDON, June 30 - Europe’s largest banks and a number of leading trading firms have urged regulators not to step in and limit where investors can execute equity trades, saying current evidence does not show that falling trading volumes on traditional exchanges have harmed price formation.
The Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME) - which counts institutions such as Deutsche Bank, Credit Agricole and Santander among its members, along with trading firms including Citadel Securities and Jane Street - issued the warning on Tuesday. AFME said that imposing tougher rules on off-exchange trading could have unintended consequences, including weakening liquidity and ultimately leaving investors worse off.
AFME’s statement came in reaction to a paper published in April by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). In that study, the EU securities watchdog set out findings on how equity trading is evolving and suggested that legislative or regulatory steps might be considered to address the ongoing decline in trading on public stock exchanges.
ESMA noted that, across Europe and the UK, the share of equities traded continuously on exchanges has been declining for several years. Investors increasingly rely on alternative mechanisms such as closing auctions and off-exchange transactions, where pricing is not always publicly visible throughout the trading day. The regulator said the trend in itself was not necessarily alarming, but cautioned that persistent migration away from transparent venues could indicate greater dependence on less visible trading methods, with potential knock-on effects for how reliably prices are set and for benchmark pricing used by investors.
In the month following ESMA’s publication, finance ministries representing Europe’s six largest economies outlined potential measures to discourage trading that occurs within investment banks and proprietary trading firms. Their proposals aimed to level the playing field by suggesting tighter transparency obligations for such trading and by recommending that banks and trading firms only handle retail orders when they can provide better prices than those available on public exchanges.
AFME responded by urging regulators to avoid limiting where investors can trade and by calling for any policy changes to be grounded in clear evidence. Peter Tomlinson, head of equities trading at AFME, told Reuters: "Both Brussels and London are focused on making markets more globally competitive and simplifying regulation. Adding more rules or restricting how and where investors trade is unlikely to support those goals."
The industry group stressed that reducing execution choices could undermine investor flexibility and possibly reduce overall market liquidity if new rules push more volume into less advantageous venues. AFME recommended that authorities prioritize data-driven analysis before adopting any new restrictions that would reshape trade execution practices.
As regulators and finance ministries continue to debate potential responses to shifting trading patterns, market participants face the prospect of policy changes that could affect equities trading, transparency standards and the handling of retail orders across Europe and the UK.