On Monday 27th May, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) launched a consultation on SFTR reporting draft Guidelines. These Guidelines will supplement the reporting RTS/ITS, and serve to clarify certain technical/procedural aspects of the reporting regime.
ESMA is planning to finalise the Guidelines in Q4 this year, taking on board elements of feedback received. This would mean that the Guidelines would be completed before the first phase of reporting in April 2020.
ESMA Guidelines are not legally binding, but need to be applied on a ‘comply or explain’ basis by National Competent Authorities and firms. This de facto means ESMA Guidelines have a similar effect to binding RTS/ITS, unless a competent authority explicitly refuses to apply the Guidelines in their regulatory/supervisory mandate. ESMA does not need a mandate from primary legislation to develop Guidelines, another crucial difference with RTS/ITS, so these particular set of Guidelines are drafted at ESMA’s own initiative and discretion.
The Guidelines aim to provide clarity on practical aspects such as how the reports have to be structured, and where they need to be sent. These include:–
- Identification of a number of transactions that do not fall under the definition of SFTs, and provides further clarity which transactions needs to be reported on
- Details on the population of reporting fields for different types of SFTs.
- Clarification regarding the approach used to link SFT collateral with SFT loans.
- The population of reporting fields for margin data.
- The population of reporting fields for reuse, reinvestment and funding sources data.
- The consultation provides guidance on the management by counterparties of feedback from TRs, namely in the case of:
o rejection of reported data; and
o reconciliation breaks - The provision of data access to authorities by TRs.
Stakeholders are invited to respond to the consultation by 29 July 2019.
ISLA will be working closely with its SFTR Steering Group to develop appropriate responses to the points raised by ESMA. If you are not part of the SFTR work groups or streams, or would like more information, please visit our SFTR page or contact sftr@islaemea.org.
