City watchdog the Financial Services Authority (FSA) yesterday saw off any move by Brussels to impose greater oversight on bond markets, stating that the market was sufficiently transparent.

The regulator claimed that domestic secondary bond trading markets were already “efficient and fair”, and it saw no evidence of market failures related to transparency in the UK’s wholesale bond markets.

The Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, or Mifid, will impose greater transparency on stock markets from next year and the European Parliament had asked Brussels to look at whether fixed-income markets should also have improved transparency.