The industry bodies, which hail from across all major EU and US financial centres, want derivatives reporting requirements to be harmonised across borders, and the further development and adoption of global data standards, among other things.

They say a lack of standardisation and consistency in reporting requirements within and across jurisdictions has led to concerns about the quality of the data being reported. Differences in reporting requirements also increase the cost and complexity for firms that have reporting obligations in multiple jurisdictions.

The lobbyists says policy-makers should embrace and adopt the use of open standards - such as legal entity identifiers (LEIs), unique trade identifiers (UTIs), unique product identifiers (UPIs) and existing messaging standards (eg, FpML, ISO, FIX) - to drive improved quality and consistency in meeting reporting requirements.

Where global standards do not yet exist, market participants and regulators should collaborate and secure agreement on a common framework to improve consistency and cross-border harmonisation, says the group. At the same time, laws or regulations that prevent policy-makers from accessing and sharing data across borders must be amended or repealed.

"Direction and support from regulators is critical," says the group. "Regulators need to be clear and consistent regarding their priorities and set timetables for reform, and we believe it is critical that regulators work in conjunction with the industry to pursue specific standards in the most effective and efficient manner."

One idea floated by the group would be to create a central 'data dictionary' that defines and clarifies derivatives trade and reference data and workflow requirements for each reporting field required by regulators globally.

While the letter specifically addresses issues around derivatives processing, the industry bodies believe that the principles adopted could set a gold standard that could be applied more broadly to other trade reporting areas.