Everyone's favorite financial regulator, the European Securities and Markets Authority, released a report this Tuesday detailing its plans for the year 2019.
In one of its many lengthy documents, the regulator said that it was going to be focusing its efforts on ensuring components of the European Market Infrastructure Regulation are adhered to.
More specifically, the pan-European regulator said that it is going to be looking at the quality of data that Trade Repositories (TR) gather and how accessible that data is to local authorities.
ESMA also said that it plans on looking at TRs IT processes and their system reliability.
For those unfamiliar with TRs, they are companies that gather sets of derivatives trading data. That includes both over-the-counter and on-exchange derivatives trading.
Improving cybersecurity
Aside from TRs, ESMA also said that it would be looking at cybersecurity procedures at credit risk agencies (CRAs) this year.
"Building on similar exercises with TRs and CCPs [central counterparty clearing houses]," said the regulator, "ESMA will survey a subset of CRAs with the aim to assess the current state of the cybersecurity risk environment."
More pertinently for this week, given the never-ending news story that is Brexit , the European regulator also said one of its main tasks for the next ten months would be dealing with the UK's exit from the European Union.
ESMA said that it would have to spend some time working out whether or not to recognize CCPs based in the UK if the country leaves the EU without a deal.
This point seems somewhat redundant given that the regulator has already recognized three major CCPs operating in the UK. On Monday of this week, LCH Limited, ICE Clear Europe Limited, and LME Clear Limited were all given the green light by ESMA to continue operating in the EU even if the UK leaves the political body with no deal.
