The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has published a summary of its supervisory work plan 2014 in relation to trade repositories (TRs) authorised under the European Markets Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR).

The bulk of activities for 2014 are expected to be of a desk based on-going supervisory nature (although detail on ESMA’s ability to use investigatory powers is provided) including:

·         monitoring and assessment of periodical information received from TRs;

·         monitoring and assessment of notifications by TRs of material changes to their conditions for registration;

·         analysis of external information received from authorities or complainants; and

·         requests for information

For the period from registration of the TR until March 2014 ESMA’s focus will be on:

·         onboarding of clients – ESMA recognises that this was one of the challenges as it affected thousands of counterparties with a limited 90-day period between registration and the start of reporting.  It is expected that this will require more supervisory attention;

·         onboarding of authorities  - ESMA is monitoring the swiftness of TRs’ reactions to requests for access by regulators;

·         monitoring of the IT systems deployment;

·         inter-TR reconciliation of data – the technical complexity of this is identified as requiring ESMA’s supervisory attention; and

·         the transparency of TR’s pricing policy.

For the second period in 2014 ESMA’s focus will be on a risk-based supervision of the TRs with a concentration on those TRs (or certain activities of the TRs, such as the IT functions) where the probability of infringement, the impact of the lack of compliance and the effect of contagion are higher.

Related link:

http://www.esma.europa.eu/system/files/2014-336_trade_repository_supervision_work_plan_2014.pdf