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Secondary Markets, Repo & Collateral 2025 has been a very busy year for secondary markets. ICMA continued its engagement on key regulatory topics, including the introduction of new bond market transparency regimes in the UK and EU and the development of consolidated tapes for bonds. We were also closely involved in Europe’s move to T+1 settlement, particularly through our participation in the EU T+1 Industry Committee (IC), formed in January, its associated technical workstreams, and our continued contribution to the UK Accelerated Settlement Taskforce (AST). In addition, ICMA extended its focus to other secondary market topics of relevance, including the 2024–2025 IOSCO consultation on pre-hedging and subsequent engagement with stakeholders. This year, ICMA also joined forces with the FIX Trading Community on a project focused on Axe distribution standards. Alongside this, we continued our analysis of bond market liquidity, trading activity, and the evolution of market structure, as reflected in ICMA’s semi-annual Secondary Bond Market Data reports covering both sovereign and corporate bonds. Related work continued through the Bond Market Liquidity Taskforce (BMLT), which, as part of its Phase II work, is currently undertaking a deep dive into liquidity and resilience in credit markets. Liquidity and the functioning of international bond markets also featured prominently in ICMA’s quarterly Secondary Market Practices Committee (SMPC) meetings. Guest speakers during the year shared insights on topics including a US Treasury market update, the outlook for EU government bond markets, enhancing the resilience of the gilt repo market, and the implications of T+1 for European fixed income markets. In relation to T+1, both the EU and the UK published their respective roadmaps for transition during 2025. These included sets of recommendations across various market areas, developed by industry experts through their participation in the technical workstreams of the EU T+1 Industry Committee and the UK AST Technical Group. ICMA has been heavily involved throughout the process, as a full member of the EU T+1 IC, co-chairing both the Trading and SFT workstreams, and as a member of the UK AST since 2023. Important milestones were reached during the year with the publication of industry recommendations and regulatory guidance. However, further work remains, particularly in areas such as settlement efficiency in general and SFTs in particular, as the market now moves into the implementation phase. ICMA remains actively engaged across all relevant initiatives. Similar progress was seen in bond market transparency and consolidated tapes, which also moved into a more operational phase during the year. The new UK transparency regime applied from 1 December 2025, with the EU regime scheduled to go live on 2 March 2026. In parallel, the selection of Consolidated Tape Providers took place in both jurisdictions, with ESMA announcing Ediphy Markets (FairCT) as the EU provider in July 2025 and the FCA announcing Etrading Software (ETS) as the selected UK candidate in August 2025. While these developments mark a significant shift towards greater transparency in bond markets, differences between the UK and EU regimes remain. Monitoring and analysing market behaviour and trading activity under the new frameworks will therefore be an important area of focus for ICMA going forward. Building on a trend towards increased electronification in bond markets highlighted in previous years, ICMA’s Electronic Trading Working Group (ETWG) undertook further analysis of emerging trading protocols, including through a targeted survey of market participants. In parallel, the ETWG entered into a joint project with the FIX Trading Community on Axe Distribution Standards. A joint discussion paper, published on 16 December, reflects input from group discussions and bilateral engagement with buy-side and sell-side members, and aims to provide a balanced assessment of current challenges as a basis for further discussion. Another area of focus during the year was IOSCO’s work on pre-hedging. ICMA responded to the IOSCO consultation in February and subsequently contributed to stakeholder engagement through a series of roundtables, some of which ICMA participated in to reflect member views. Following the publication of IOSCO’s final report in November 2025, ICMA expects to continue engagement with members and regulators across jurisdictions on this topic. Overall, ICMA remained actively engaged in its core areas of focus while expanding into new topics and market segments. This was reflected in increased engagement with new market entrants and liquidity providers within the bond market ecosystem, as well as growing attention to products such as fixed income ETFs and developments in private credit. Looking ahead, 2026 is expected to be another active year, with an early focus on implementation across several regulatory initiatives. ICMA looks forward to continuing its engagement with members and will share further details shortly on the next ICMA Secondary Market Forum, which is currently planned to be held jointly with the Asset Management and Investor Council (AMIC) Forum in Paris in the first quarter of the year. Contacts: ICMASecondaryMarkets@icmagroup.org | ercc@icmagroup.org |
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