Article 26(9) of the Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation empowers the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) to develop draft regulatory technical standards (RTS) which specify further the rules applicable to reporting transactions to member state competent authorities (NCAs) by investment firms.
ESMA issued a consultation paper on 19 December 2014 and the consultation closed on 2 March 2015. ESMA submitted draft RTS to the European Commission (Commission) in July 2015. The draft RTS that were consulted on and those submitted to the Commission did not contain an explicit reference to the exclusion of collateral transfers from the meaning of transaction. However, feedback to an earlier ESMA discussion paper indicated support for an explicit reference which resulted in ESMA writing to the Commission in April to request the explicit exclusion of transfer of collateral from transaction reporting.
The Commission has now published a Delegated Regulation containing RTS concerning the harmonised reporting of transactions to NCAs. Article 2(4) of the Delegated Regulation has been amended to explicitly exclude collateral transfers from the reporting obligation. An accompanying annex has also been published. The Delegated Regulation was adopted by the Commission on 28 July 2016.
