EMIR Q and A – Necessity Or Tool For Clarification?

Monday, 28/07/2014 | 00:37 GMT by Mark Kelly
  • Legislation would be even more verbose if it needed to include all of the practical advice, which firms need.
EMIR Q and A – Necessity Or Tool For Clarification?
Photo: Bloomberg

Legislation would be even more verbose if it needed to include all of the practical advice, which firms need to develop an implementation plan. The Q&A as a clarification mechanism is a well-proven route. The FCA’s Transaction Reporting User Pack is now on its third full release and has played a vital role in tidying up UK application of the MiFID reporting rules. Unfortunately the process took around 5 years before we could say that all substantive issues were sufficiently clarified. The ESMA Q&A has similarly served a useful role in making the rules less opaque to the financial industry.

Deadlines Not Being Met?

However, the timing of this input has been a problem, with major changes introduced just the day before reporting began in February. Large institutions move at a glacial pace, and at least one major investment bank has yet to implement the pattern of reporting for non-EEA Exchange -traded derivatives which was set out six months ago. Worse still, the clarifications around the pre-requisites for position reporting, which were set out in December 2013, are still being widely ignored.

An argument could be made that, while the technical standards were adopted into the legislation, the Q&A has no such status and can be ignored with impunity. Time will tell whether the regulator takes such a relaxed view. What is less understandable is that some firms and industry groups have decided to ignore items in the technical standards, which are now part of European law. One client has received a letter from a (different) large investment bank stating that they don’t want to report collateral codes as ten numeric digits, so will be going for twenty character alphanumeric. There may be some crumb of comfort here – given the level of misinterpretation and ignoring of the rules among the larger firms, the national regulators responsible for policing EMIR may take some time to work their way down to the smaller retail brokers.

Legislation would be even more verbose if it needed to include all of the practical advice, which firms need to develop an implementation plan. The Q&A as a clarification mechanism is a well-proven route. The FCA’s Transaction Reporting User Pack is now on its third full release and has played a vital role in tidying up UK application of the MiFID reporting rules. Unfortunately the process took around 5 years before we could say that all substantive issues were sufficiently clarified. The ESMA Q&A has similarly served a useful role in making the rules less opaque to the financial industry.

Deadlines Not Being Met?

However, the timing of this input has been a problem, with major changes introduced just the day before reporting began in February. Large institutions move at a glacial pace, and at least one major investment bank has yet to implement the pattern of reporting for non-EEA Exchange -traded derivatives which was set out six months ago. Worse still, the clarifications around the pre-requisites for position reporting, which were set out in December 2013, are still being widely ignored.

An argument could be made that, while the technical standards were adopted into the legislation, the Q&A has no such status and can be ignored with impunity. Time will tell whether the regulator takes such a relaxed view. What is less understandable is that some firms and industry groups have decided to ignore items in the technical standards, which are now part of European law. One client has received a letter from a (different) large investment bank stating that they don’t want to report collateral codes as ten numeric digits, so will be going for twenty character alphanumeric. There may be some crumb of comfort here – given the level of misinterpretation and ignoring of the rules among the larger firms, the national regulators responsible for policing EMIR may take some time to work their way down to the smaller retail brokers.

About the Author: Mark Kelly
Mark Kelly
  • 16 Articles
  • 7 Followers
About the Author: Mark Kelly
Mark Kelly is a Director at Abide Financial Limited, who are a UK Approved Reporting Mechanism for MiFID and offer a hub service for EMIR trade reporting, routing client transaction reports to Trade Repositories. Abide has helped dozens of financial services firms to comply with the EMIR regulations, since mandatory trade reporting began in February 2014. Mark has been working in the financial services sector in London and New York since 1990, and has occupied senior Audit and Compliance positions in Salomon Brothers, Lehman Brothers and Barclays Capital. For the past six years he has worked as a compliance auditor and consultant, advising UK firms on how to implement technology solutions which comply with regulatory requirements. He specialises in addressing the particular needs of those caught by the MiFID reporting requirements and in helping firms to meet their EMIR obligations. Mark has a BA and PhD from the University of Mark Kelly is a Director at Abide Financial Limited, who are a UK Approved Reporting Mechanism for MiFID and offer a hub service for EMIR trade reporting, routing client transaction reports to Trade Repositories. Abide has helped dozens of financial services firms to comply with the EMIR regulations, since mandatory trade reporting began in February 2014. Mark has been working in the financial services sector in London and New York since 1990, and has occupied senior Audit and Compliance positions in Salomon Brothers, Lehman Brothers and Barclays Capital. For the past six years he has worked as a compliance auditor and consultant, advising UK firms on how to implement technology solutions which comply with regulatory requirements. He specialises in addressing the particular needs of those caught by the MiFID reporting requirements and in helping firms to meet their EMIR obligations. Mark has a BA and PhD from the University of Durham and during his career has gained professional qualifications in Internal Audit, Computer Audit and Financial Services Compliance.
  • 16 Articles
  • 7 Followers

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