By Ben Myers, Managing Director EMEA, Transaction Network Services
Each year it becomes more challenging to predict the implications of geopolitical and regulatory change, alongside technological advancements, on the financial trading community. For 2026, a few themes are starting to stand out: infrastructure migration, market data demands, market access considerations and operating model choices.
- Implications of Data Centre Migration
Exchange and venue data centre changes are likely to continue through 2026 and into 2027. The growth of AI workloads is adding pressure on power and cooling, influencing capacity planning across major facilities and financial hubs.
A migration in the spotlight is BME Group’s (Bolsas y Mercados Españoles) data centre move to Equinix’s MD6 in Alcobendas, Spain. For lean technology teams, it is rarely ‘just a connectivity project’. It often means testing windows, cutover planning and contingency arrangements. For many firms, a Managed Services Partner (MSP) provides a practical operating model for managing these transitions, reducing operational load while maintaining oversight and control.
Beyond the migration itself, fragmentation remains a challenge. As infrastructure spreads across sites, execution and market data environments can split into silos, slowing decision-making and increasing operational overhead. The challenge is to keep the trading stack cohesive, even as the footprint becomes more distributed.
- The Introduction of the Consolidated Tape
The consolidated tape (CT) debate continues, with trading firms expecting changes in how market data is consumed. CT aims include giving market participants a real-time, comprehensive view of market activity for better decision-making, price discovery and market efficiency. This shift makes 2026 a sensible time for European trading firms to review their market data strategy and readiness.
There are many considerations with the introduction of CT, from regulation to data centre and feed outage planning. Tape data will differ from direct exchange feeds, and questions to address include:
- Will implementation vary by asset class (for example bonds versus equities/ETFs)?
- What will the bandwidth requirements look like?
- How will firms consume CT data alongside direct feeds?
In the US, consolidated-style data feeds such as OPRA in listed options show how quickly data volumes can scale. Europe’s tape may take a different form, but firms should plan for bandwidth headroom and resilience. A shared services model can help firms standardise onboarding and monitoring across multiple data sources without repeated reengineering. In reality, tape readiness becomes an operational challenge, not just a technical one.
- New Geographical Regions to consider
Some European trading firms are actively exploring expansion beyond their home markets, with growing interest in the Middle East and parts of Asia (such as India, Korea, Vietnam and Indonesia). The opportunity can be attractive, but market access is often less standardised.
Venues can differ in how market data is delivered and how trading access is structured. Some exchanges distribute market data via multicast, while others rely on TCP-based delivery models for guaranteed delivery and flow control. Broker and hosting requirements can also vary, including whether firms can trade via an international broker, must use a local broker or are required to host through a broker.
For firms considering new regions in 2026, the priority is to treat expansion as a structured onboarding exercise. That means understanding the practical requirements, from feed delivery, access rules and go-live testing, before meaningful capital is committed. Because access models and local requirements vary so widely, many firms lean on specialist partners to shorten the learning curve and reduce execution risk.
- 24×5 Trading continues
Overnight trading for European firms wishing to trade US bonds and equities is set to accelerate throughout 2026. Traders can react quickly to market-moving events but reduced nighttime liquidity can bring higher volatility, so balancing agility with appropriate risk management is vital.
Operating confidently across a 24×5 window depends on resilience first: highly reliable connectivity, clear failover paths, and monitoring that catches issues early. Controls matter too, particularly when human oversight is reduced. Done well, extending trading becomes a repeatable capability the business can rely on.
- Get Ahead
In the increasingly competitive financial trading market, advantage often comes from how effectively firms keep pace with change. Market structure evolves, data volumes grow, and infrastructure requirements shift, placing sustained pressure on technology and operations teams.
For 2026, the firms best placed will be those that simplify where they can, invest where it matters most, and keep their trading environment resilient as new liquidity pools and data demands emerge. That resilience is as much operational as it is technical. For many firms, managed service models are a pragmatic way to maintain consistency and control operational overhead as complexity increases.
Ben Myers is Managing Director EMEA for TNS Financial Markets, leading a team that is responsible for supporting customers with trading infrastructure, connectivity, market data and data centre colocation needs.