On Thursday 24 August, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published its final guidelines on the transfer of data between trade repositories authorised to carry out their activities in the European Union under the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR).
Readers may recall that the 'EMIR' Regulation of 2014 creates a transparency requirement for all derivative products, by requiring all transactions to be declared to accredited central trade repositories.
“Data portability is essential for data quality, competition between trade repositories and for risk monitoring by authorities”, ESMA stresses in a press release.
The guidelines set out a “consistent and harmonised” process for the transfer of data between trade repositories, irrespective of whether the transfer is carried out on a voluntary basis and under normal market conditions or is the result of the withdrawal of a trade repository's registration.
They also aim to support the continuity of the declaration in all situations, for instance if a financial or non-financial counterpart changes the trade repository to which its transactions in derivatives are declared.
More specifically, they cover the conditions for data transfer, the entities involved in the transfer, the migration plan, the data format and security and all costs related to the transfer.
The guidelines will enter into force on 16 October of this year for the seven trade repositories currently authorised to operate within the EU. ESMA furthermore states that it will carry out an evaluation every year as to whether the guidelines are being complied with. The guidelines are available at the following address: http://bit.ly/2ym4pSz. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)