* HST . Occassional Paper FCA_ UK

High-frequency traders (HFTs) have received a mixed reaction from academics and practitioners with some people underlining their role as liquidity providers and others highlighting the problems that they could bring to the market.

• Occasional Paper No. 16: Are high-frequency traders anticipating the order flow? Cross-venue evidence from the UK market

From summary:  Do HFTs exploit their small (milliseconds) latency advantages to anticipate orders arriving in very quick succession at different trading venues from other market participants?. The regulatory EU set-up makes it more difficult to predict where orders will be routed, compared to the US market?

EU. Parliament and ECB to study virtual currencies, whilst Luxembourg grants first distributed ledger technology

The European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee  voted last week  in favor of creating a task force to study and regulate virtual currencies such as bitcoin with the aim of preventing their use by money launderers and terrorist groups. 

Also, the European Central Bank has begun experimenting with "distributed ledger technology," the platform underpinning the bitcoin digital currency, an official said Monday, cautioning that the technology’s “far-reaching” ramifications require more investigation.

Further, Bitstamp announced that Luxembourg has granted it a payment institution license, making the company the first nationally licensed Bitcoin exchange in the world. With the European Union’s “passport” that allows financial services providers legally established in one member state to operate in others, Bitstamp, the third-largest Bitcoin exchange, will also be able to operate across all 28 European Union countries. The license starts operativity on July 1, from Luxembourg

Background article here;  and here