Old and New: Changes Under the UK Bonds Transparency Regime

Old and New: Changes Under the UK Bonds Transparency Regime

On 1 December 2025, the FCA’s revamped bonds transparency regime comes into effect, slightly ahead of the EU’s (currently slated for March 2026 subject to final rule adoption). With less than three months to go, here’s a quick overview of the main UK changes.

Same scope, different approach

The FCA has opted for a more streamlined, less complex regime than exists today.

• The scope still applies to all bonds traded on a UK trading venue (TOTV).  
• However, instead of performing regular transparency calculations, the FCA will use a set of features considered reliable proxies.  

Bonds are grouped by type of issuer – sovereign or corporate – and further refined by:  

• Sovereign bonds: by issuance size, country of issuer and time to maturity. 
• Corporate bonds: by issuance size, currency of issuance and credit rating (investment grade (IG) or high yield (HY)). 

Pre trade transparency / waivers 

Pre-Trade Transparency (pre-TT) shows information on prospective trading interests. Waivers allow certain orders to be exempt from publication. Under the new UK rules, pre-TT is narrower in scope and only applies to the following trading venue systems:  

• continuous auction order books; 
• quote-driven trading systems 
• periodic auction trading systems. 

No longer in scope: Request for quotes (RFQ) and voice trading platforms are no longer in scope and investment firms will not be subject to pre-TT for trading bonds OTC. In fact, since 31 March 2025 trading venues have not needed to show pre-TT for RFQ and voice trades nor UK Systematic Internalisers (SIs) publish quotes. 

The different types of waivers have been reduced. The much-disliked size specific to the instrument (SSTI) waiver has been retired as has the illiquid instruments waiver whilst Large in Scale (LIS) and Order Management Systems waivers for trading venues remain. 

Post trade transparency / deferrals 

Post-TT provides information on prices and volumes about completed transactions. Deferrals permit a delay where real-time publication is deemed to create adverse market impact. 

• ‘Real-time’ still means reporting as soon as technically possible, within 5 minutes at the latest, except for package transactions and portfolio trades where real-time has a 15 minutes maximum. 
• The deferral regime has been simplified with the removal of SSTI and illiquid waivers. 
• There are now three LIS deferrals durations (one day, two days, three months) with the same deferral period applying to both price and volume.  
• Transparency thresholds have also been recalibrated. 

Want to explore further? 

ETS has published the FCA’s transparency tables showing estimated % for trade and volume captured within the new thresholds.

What changes can you make today?

If you want to be ready for these changes you can start accessing ETS Connect Premium now – consolidated and cleansed, most up-to-date (RTS2) UK and EU transparency data which will help you benchmark across jurisdictions, prepare for regulatory shifts and make decisions with great confidence and clarity.

You can sign up now for free until the end of 2025.