Search

FIA European Principal Traders Association

FIA European Principal Traders Association (FIA EPTA) represents Europe’s leading Principal Trading Firms. Our 26 members are independent market makers and providers of liquidity and risk transfer for exchanges and end-investors across Europe. We work constructively with policymakers, regulators and other market stakeholders to ensure efficient, resilient, high-quality financial markets.

Learn more about FIA EPTA

Recent Updates

  • FIA EPTA response to the ESMA Consultation Paper on ESMA’s Opinion on the trading venue perimeter

    FIA EPTA appreciates the opportunity to provide feedback to the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) on the consultation on ESMA’s Opinion on the trading venue perimeter. FIA EPTA considers that ESMA’s approach to defining multilateral systems is overly broad and risks creating further confusion and inconsistencies in the application of MiFID II across the Union.

    CONTINUE READING

  • FIA EPTA response on the BaFin Consultation on a planned General Administrative Act regarding Futures with additional payment obligations

    FIA EPTA members would like to emphasise that we value and support the objective by BaFin to prioritise investor protection. We agree that it is of the utmost importance to ensure that financial markets are transparent and safe for retail investors. However, as said, we do not consider that banning listed futures trading for retail investors, as now proposed by BaFin, will contribute to this objective, and in our view rather the opposite.

    CONTINUE READING

  • FIA EPTA response consultation on the review of the central clearing framework in the EU

    FIA EPTA members believe that the Commission should firstly focus on opportunities to incentivise clearing of new transactions on EU CCPs as moving legacy positions to another CCP will create issues around higher cost and increased risk of closing and re-opening the cleared position on the market. FIA EPTA members believe that harmonisation of the different EU legal frameworks for cross-border activity would be helpful as EU CCPs require complex legal structures to ensure the enforceability of their rules in a default situation.

    CONTINUE READING

  • FIA EPTA response to the IOSCO Consultation Paper on Operational resilience of trading venues and market intermediaries during the COVID-19 pandemic

    FIA EPTA welcomes the opportunity to respond to the IOSCO Consolation Paper on the Operational resilience of trading venues and market intermediaries during the COVID-19 pandemic. FIA EPTA members believe it an important step by IOSCO to review the resilience of financial market participants during the Covid-19 pandemic as the lessons learned will better prepare the sector for future occurrences of high volatility.

    CONTINUE READING
Read All Latest News

Social Media

Follow us on

EPTA Blog

  • CMU and the Investment Firm Review: strengthening European capital markets through proportionality

    Hands up if you want up-and-coming European companies to have sufficient access to the money they need to grow and to drive prosperity across the EU? It’s a no brainer – and one of the reasons why European politicians and regulators are keen to push forward the Capital Markets Union.

    CONTINUE READING

  • Developing the CMU through an effective new Prudential Regime for Investment Firms

    One of the building blocks of the EU’s Capital Markets Union project is entering a crucial few months as the proposed new Prudential Regime for Investment Firms enters parliamentary scrutiny.

    CONTINUE READING

  • Flash Crashes – time to stop knee-jerk blaming of HFT?

    On the 6th May 2010, Wall Street experienced what quickly became known as the ‘Flash Crash’. On the 15th January 2015, the Swiss Franc experienced a similar event against the Euro. And in October 2016, there was a flash crash in sterling, following Britain’s vote to leave the EU. The recent events in the sterling market seemed like a good idea to look back at the post event analysis of previous ‘flash crashes’ and review the findings.

    CONTINUE READING

  • The growing body of HFT research: time to put old arguments to bed?

    Over the last few years the great and the good of the world’s regulatory authorities that govern financial markets have studied the impacts of the electronification of the markets, and the role played by high frequency trading. We welcome the recognition in these studies that markets and end users benefit from increased use of innovative technology, in line with the experience with innovation in other industries. We provide a summary of the recent reports.

    CONTINUE READING

  • Five years’ of providing a voice to the EU principal trading industry

    This summer, FIA EPTA marked the 5th anniversary of its foundation. Although still a comparatively young organisation, this milestone has caused the people, like myself, who were there at the start to reflect upon how things have changed since we’ve been in business – as well as looking forward to what the next five years might bring.

    CONTINUE READING

  • CRD IV bonus cap has perverse effect of increasing risk

    The EU's Capital Requirements Directive CRD IV has imposed a bonus cap on credit institutions and investment firms with the intention of discouraging the excessive risk-taking with client monies that contributed to the financial crisis. However, the inappropriate application of this bonus cap to principal trading firms now has the potential to result in the perverse effect of actually increasing risk, whilst hurting market quality.

    CONTINUE READING
Read All Blog Posts