ICE predicts European regulatory overhaul

European regulation could see an overhaul post-Brexit as the region follows trends in the US, according to chief executive officer at the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), Jeffrey Sprecher.

Speaking on the exchange group’s fourth quarter earnings call, Sprecher said the different outlook on regulation seen in the US following the Presidential election could be replicated in Europe.

“You’re going to have some kind of change going on in Europe post-Brexit with the UK leaving the EU and both entities revaluating, in my opinion, the footprints of regulation that they have in order to remain globally competitive and have something that’s relevant to their markets,” he said.

In the US, Donald Trump has been moving forward with plans to order a review of Dodd-Frank, established in 2010 in response to the financial crisis.

Many banks have already spent huge sums of money implementing Dodd-Frank, and some may express alarm at having to unwind their compliance and infrastructure builds.

Sprecher welcomed the changes and added: “right now, we are operating in a very, very highly regulated somewhat restrictive business.

“We would welcome the freedom to innovate and to use some of the techniques and technology and things that we do in other markets and bring them into the U.S. equity space.”

His views were recently echoed by chief executive officer at Virtu Financial, Doug Cifu, who predicted a return to normalised volumes and volatility globally due to Donald Trump’s leadership in the US.

Cifu said: “We believe with the new pro-growth and pro-business environment in Washington that the stage is set for return to a more normalised volume and volatility environment globally.”