The utility already covers over 60% of the market and firms who have so far signed up for TURN include Allfunds, Calastone, Deutsche Bank, Fidelity International, Link Group, MFEX, KNEIP, Transact Deutsche Wealth Services, FNZ, and Fund Connect.

Pete Davies has been appointed the Chair of the newly created TURN Governance Board. The board has completed its first meeting.

All relevant parties in a transaction now have access to the EMTs (European MiFID II Template) on a real time basis which are of a high and consistent quality. Before the building of TURN, this exchange of information was inconsistent, and firms reported struggles to obtain all the data they required from other firms to enable disclosure of all costs in an investment leading to a lack of transparency and inappropriate products being marketed to retail investors.

The participating firms also disclosed that previously their data management costs averaged £200,000 per year. TURN immediately reduces these costs to less than £30,000 per year (fee depending on size of firm and whether or not they are a TISA Member), with a one off £15,000 joining fee (£18,750 for non-members.

Although the initial scope is EMT data in the UK market, TISA and the MiFID II committee have ambitious plans to build additional functionality to the platform over time, such as ESG data, and increase geographical scope. TURN will continue to deliver solutions to key data exchange problems faced by the industry over the next 18 months. The next developments have now been agreed as PRIIPs (Packaged Retail and Insurance-based Investment Products) and a Feedback Template. TURN is also working with FinDatEx to create an agreed standard for Fund Static Data.

Gary Bond, CEO of TURN, said: “I am glad to announce that TURN is now live. This is an industry-led and run, not-for-profit initiative that will ultimately ensure that consumers are offered the best and most suitable products while lowering costs and time spent on admin for asset managers. A huge amount of work from all of the participating firms has gone into building this utility to ensure it is fit-for-purpose. The impact TURN will have for asset managers, distributors, IT firms and other platforms across Europe is huge. Finally, the technology is catching up with the needs of the investors and their asset managers.”

Matt Newnham, Managing Director at MFEX said: “After working with TISA on this project since its inception, MFEX is thrilled that TURN has now launched to the market across Europe. We are already seeing the benefits of building a fully transparent, immutable and efficient exchange of regulatory and fund data, through a data utility for the asset management and fund distribution industry.”