Due to a technical issue, ESMA will delay the publication of the systematic internaliser (SI) regime data for equity, equity-like instruments and bonds. This publication will now occur by the end of next week.

The publication of the data for the SI calculations for derivatives and other instruments has been delayed until 2020 at the latest, as set out in the updated plan announced by ESMA on 30 January 2019The SI-assessment for those asset classes does therefore not need to be performed until this publication has taken place.

Background

According to Article 4(1)(20) of Directive 2014/65/EU (MiFID II) investment firms dealing on own account when executing client orders over the counter (OTC) on an organised, frequent systematic and substantial basis are subject to the mandatory SI regime.

Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) No 2017/565 specifies thresholds determining what constitutes frequent, systematic and substantial OTC trading. In particular, investment firms are required to assess whether they are SIs in a specific instrument (for equity and equity-like instruments, bonds, ETCs and ETNs and SFPs) or for a (sub-) class of instruments (for derivatives, securitised derivatives and emission allowances) on a quarterly basis based on data from the previous six months. For each specific instrument/sub-class, an investment firm is required to compare the trading it undertakes on its own account compared to the total volume and number of transactions executed in the European Union (EU). If the investment firm exceeds the relative thresholds it will be deemed an SI and will have to fulfil the SI-specific obligations. ESMA, upon request of market participants and on a voluntary basis, decided to compute the total volume and number of transactions executed in the EU in order to help market participants in the performance of the test, since that data is essential for the operation of the SI regime and is not otherwise easily available.

Separately, has started today to make available new data for bonds subject to the pre- and post-trade requirements of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II) and Regulation (MiFIR) through its data register.

ESMA has started today to make available the third quarterly liquidity assessment for bonds that are available for trading on EU trading venues as at the end of December. For the Q1 2019 period, there are currently 987 liquid bonds subject to MiFID II transparency requirements. The increased number of liquid bonds is the result of a higher level of data completeness driven particularly by better data reporting by systematic internalisers.

ESMA’s liquidity assessment for bonds is based on a quarterly assessment of quantitative liquidity criteria, which include the daily average trading activity (trades and notional amount) and percentage of days traded per quarter. ESMA updates the bond market liquidity assessments quarterly.