On 7 September 2020, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) announced that it had decided that trading venues and investment firms may postpone, for operational reasons, the application of the annual transparency calculations for non-equity instruments other than bonds to 21 September 2020 (instead of 15 September 2020). The decision also applies to the quarterly calculations for the purpose of the systematic internaliser (SI) regime for non-equity instruments other than bonds.

As previously announced, ESMA will provide the annual transparency calculations for non-equity instruments at instrument (ISIN) basis, both liquid and illiquid ones, as of 14 September 2020. This information will be made available through the Financial Instruments Transparency System both by publishing XML files and through the register web interface.

In addition, in order to avoid potential misalignments between the application of the non-equity transparency calculations and the start of the mandatory SI-regime for non-equity instruments other than bonds, investment firms, applying the non-equity transparency calculations on 21 September instead of 15 September 2020, may perform the SI-test for non-equity instruments other than bonds by 21 September 2020.

The transparency requirements based on the results of the annual transparency calculations for non-equity instruments will apply from 15 September 2020, with the option to delay application to 21 September 2020, until 31 May 2021. From 1 June 2021, the results of the next annual transparency calculations for non-equity instruments, to be published by 30 April 2021, will become applicable.

ESMA will publish the next quarterly publication of data for the purpose of the SI regime by 1 November 2020 with an application date of 15 November 2020 for equity and equity-like instrument, bonds and non-equity instruments.