The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has published its final report on the guidelines and technical standards for reporting under the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR) which is to take effect on April 29, 2024.

ESMA announced on Tuesday that the guidelines “will further enhance the harmonization and standardization of reporting under EMIR, contributing to the high quality of data necessary for the effective monitoring of systemic risk.”

This is even as the regulator believes that increased harmonization and standardization of reporting will allow for containing costs "along the complete reporting chain – the counterparties that report the data, the TRs which put in place the procedures to verify the completeness and correctness of data, and the authorities, defined in Article 81(3) of EMIR, which uses data for supervisory and regulatory purposes.”

The final report comes three days after the European Union securities markets regulator published the draft technical standards for the EMIR REFIT regulation. The regulator noted that the final report takes into account the feedback it received in response to its consultation paper announced in July last year.

ESMA Clarifications on New EMIR REFIT

According to ESMA, the guidelines provide an explanation of how to transit into the new rules, the number of reportable derivatives, the intragroup derivatives exemption from reporting and delegation of reporting, and the allocation of responsibility for reporting.

Furthermore, the guidelines provide insight on reporting logic and the population of reporting fields, reporting of different types of derivatives, and ensuring data quality by the counterparties and the trade repositories. In addition, ESMA said the guidelines offer insight into the structure of the Trade State Report and reconciliation of derivatives by trade repositories.

Additionally, the guidelines will be translated and published in all EU languages, ESMA noted.

EMIR’s Amendment Journey

EMIR stipulates the clearing and bilateral risk-management requirements for over-the-counter (OTC) derivative contracts and reporting requirements for OTC and exchange-traded derivatives contracts. Moreover, the regulation outlines uniform requirements for the performance of activities of central clearing counterparties and trade repositories.

The regulation first came into force on August 16, 2012, in response to the 2009 G20 Pittsburgh Summit, to boost the transparency of the derivatives market and reduce risk.

On the other hand, the EMIR REFIT, a regulation that amends some parts of the EMIR, came into force on June 17, 2019, after being published earlier in May 2019 in the Official Journal of the European Union.

Meanwhile, EMIR 2.2 amended sections of the EMIR on the procedures and authorities involved in the authorization of CCPs as well as requirements for the recognition of third-country CCPs. The regulation became active on January 1, 2020.