Bond investors in the UK can now access a single stream of trading data after ET S Connect UK launched a consolidated tape on Monday. The system captures more than 95% of bonds traded across venues, marking a major step toward market transparency that took years to implement.

The initiative follows more than two decades after the US introduced TRACE, its debt trading aggregation system. A lengthy consultation and legal challenge nearly derailed the project before the Financial Conduct Authority awarded the contract to the Etrading Software unit. The tape includes UK trading activity in sovereign and corporate debt issued globally.

Sassan Danesh, chief executive officer at ET S Connect UK, said the tape will fundamentally change how bond market activity is viewed and understood. The data consolidation is expected to drive the next wave of algorithmic and electronic trading growth.

Discretionary fixed-income managers, credit-focused hedge funds, and long-only asset managers stand to benefit most. For smaller firms, the tape provides a comprehensive market view that was previously available only through expensive multiple data feeds. Pricing venues that sell model-derived estimates may face disruption as the tape commoditizes bond pricing data.