On 13 November 2018, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published two final reports relating to the Securitisation Regulation:
- Securitisation Regulation technical standards on securitisation repository application requirements, operational standards, and access conditions (the Technical Standards); and
- ESMA’s technical advice to the European Commission on fees for securitisation repositories under the Securitisation Regulation (the Technical Advice).
The Technical Standards provide an overview of the feedback ESMA received to its December 2017 and March 2018 consultation papers on draft technical standards under the Securitisation Regulation. The regulatory technical standards (RTS) are set out in full in the annexes of the Technical Standards. The key elements to note include:
- RTS on operation standards and access conditions: overall market participants were in favour of the majority of ESMA’s proposals. ESMA has, however, modified several RTS provisions, notably: the development of XML schema that are consistent with ISO; and consolidating provisions relating to securitisation repository procedures to verify the completeness and consistency of data submitted to the repository; and
- RTS on application requirements: ESMA has adjusted the provisions in this area following feedback to: stipulate that an application should include detailed example test cases; and set out clearer provisions on demonstrating the operational separation between an applicant’s business lines that comprise the provision of securitisation repository services under the Securitisation Regulation and its remaining business lines.
The Technical Advices provides an overview of and a response to ESMA’s consultation of March 2019 on advice to assist the Commission in formulating a Regulation on fees for Securitisation Repositories. ESMA welcomes the overall feedback from the consultation, and has agreed with responses that securitisation repository registration fees should be adjusted in order to more closely track applicants’ turnover.
ESMA has also further clarified provisions for the annual supervisory fee for a given year for a securitisation repository registered on or after 1 October of the previous year. ESMAs responses to feedback from its consultation is set out in section 3.1 of the Technical Advice
ESMA has also published guidance to market participants on its arrangements for being notified of a securitisation’s simple, transparent and standardised status (STS). The guidance consists of a set of reporting instructions and an interim STS notification template, pending the development of ESMA’s STS Register in the coming months.
Finally, ESMA has published a statement covering various topics related to its near-term implementation activities under the Securitisation Regulation. The statement is intended to provide additional information to facilitate market participants’ understanding around ESMA’s deliverables.
