ICE Data Services has expanded coverage for its Best Execution service to include sovereign and corporate bonds in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

Best Execution leverages ICE’s fixed income Continuous Evaluated Pricing to measure best execution, and offers a trade-by-trade measure of execution quality relative to comparable market transactions.

The launch of Best Execution in EMEA comes as European regulators are moving to expand transparency in fixed income securities.

In particular, Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II) formalised rules that require investment firms to maintain records quantifying the transaction quality of their counterparties.

By quantifying trade-by-trade execution quality versus comparable transactions, the independent metrics provided by Best Execution enables firms to demonstrate compliance with MiFID II requirements.

Best Execution uses an innovative scoring methodology that allows clients to see how their trades stack up against comparable transactions across maturity, sector and issue, among others, by using a simple percentile ranking.

Portfolio managers, traders and compliance officers can employ Best Execution to monitor trading activities across venues and protocols, and to conduct transaction cost analysis (TCA) in fixed income markets.

Lynn Martin, President and COO of ICE Data Services, said:  “At a time when regulations are playing a larger role in financial markets, Best Execution offers innovative analytics that measure the execution quality of trades and meet the mounting demands of managing regulatory compliance requirements.”

“Built from our continuous evaluated pricing platform, Best Execution provides a new level of transparency into the fixed income markets and helps meet our clients’ expanding risk management needs,” she said.

With approximately 2.7 million daily evaluations, including a broad range of hard-to-value, thinly traded securities, ICE Data Services is a market leader in evaluated pricing for fixed income and international equities.

Best Execution service is one of many products available from ICE Data Services for traders, portfolio managers and compliance officers.