After driving a sea change in how brokers charge for their investment research, the next target for regulators seeking to stamp out potential inducements could be the sophisticated technology that powers fund managers’ share trading desks.

With the introduction in January of the revised Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, or Mifid II, regulators stamped out the practice of bundling the costs of research and trade execution together. Their view was that the research represented an inducement to trade whereas they wanted to encourage asset managers to pay separately for research and choose their brokers based on their skill.