On 19 March 2020, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) issued a statement that delayed the phase 1 implementation of SFTR. It accomplished this by expecting national competent authorities (NCAs) not to prioritise supervisory actions towards counterparties until July 2020 (phase 2 SFTR).
That statement has now been clarified further (ESMA revised statement 26 March 2020), specifically to address backloading, which is an SFTR requirement to capture data not required to be reported on go-live date.
ISLA’s understanding from the statement is that all backloading will not be prioritised for all phases of SFTR, effectively allowing all firms to no longer consider backloading as a requirement.
ISLA welcomes this swift and pragmatic clarification which we are sure will relieve the pressure on market participants during these unprecedented and difficult times.
We are also pleased to note the corresponding announcements from a number of NCAs. These can be found on the following websites:
AFM
https://www.afm.nl/nl-nl/professionals/nieuws/2020/mrt/esma-verduidelijkt-positie-sftr-backloading
