Post-trade infrastructure services provider DTCC has been fined nearly $73,000 by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) for alleged failures to properly offer “direct and immediate access to derivatives trading data” for nine months in 2014. The regulator’s fine of €64,000 (equivalent to 72,907.15 given a 1 EUR = 1.13917 USD rate) is the… Read More >>
FIX Group Backs ISO OTC Identifier Effort
The FIX Trading Community is throwing its support behind a standards-creation effort that would assign identifiers to over-the-counter (OTC) derivative instruments as mandated by the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive/Regulation (MiFID II) requirements. The non-profit body behind the FIX electronic trading protocol is sponsoring a study group of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that… Read More >>
CFTC, EU Finally Agree on a Clearing Deal
After three years of often bitter political squabbling, the European Commission and its U.S. counterpart the commodities regulator CFTC finally reached an agreement on a common approach to equivalent recognition of central clearing counterparties (CCPs). The two sides, which oversee around 90 percent of the $553 trillion derivatives market, have been at loggerheads over mutual… Read More >>
Why Regulators Are to Blame for the MiFID II Delay
While U.S. and European authorities are finally making progress in harmonizing key rules and regulations, it’s becoming painfully clear that the lack of an initial, collaborative response among regulators to the global recession is hitting home for all securities firms. A case in point is the recently announced (and expected) new deadline for the Markets… Read More >>
Lack of Global Standards Impedes Trade Repositories: ESMA Report
The lack of global standards in the trade repository space (TR) could hinder the repository process, a finding of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) in its recently published 55-page 2016 annual report, which outlines its supervisory priorities for credit ratings agency (CRA) governance as well as the quality and data access for TRs…. Read More >>
CFTC Authorizes Eurex Clearing for U.S. Swaps Markets
CFTC Blesses Eurex Clearing U.S. regulator CFTC has authorized Eurex Clearing’s registration as a derivatives clearing organization (DCO), which will allow Eurex Clearing to provide clearing services for swaps for U.S. clearing members, officials say. The authorization makes Eurex Clearing the 16th DCO registered with the CFTC and the sixth registered DCO based outside the… Read More >>
Ops Gets on the Blockchain Revolution Bus
Bitcoin, a so-called crypto-currency, may fade before anyone really understands what it was or how it could actually have prevailed in financial services. However, out of Bitcoin’s ashes has risen the humbly named Blockchain technology. The distributed ledger technology that has been propping up Bitcoin has come to the attention of major industry players. This… Read More >>
Swaps Clearing in Europe Catching Up to U.S. Rules
The European Union has set the date for its clearing obligation, bringing European financial reform more into line with current U.S. obligations. The publication of the European Securities and Markets Authority’s (ESMA) regulatory technical standards (RTS) in the Official Journal of the European Union on December 1, 2015 will kick over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives clearing into… Read More >>
FIX May Get New Timestamps for MiFID II Compliance
The FIX Protocol for electronic trading may soon support higher timestamp resolution to help market participants comply with the revised Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II) for Europe, according to the governing body behind the Financial Information eXchange (FIX) standard. Implementing MiFID II will involve many IT challenges for industry participants, says Kathleen Traynor,… Read More >>
Europe Moves to Clarify OTC Derivatives Regulations
(Editor’s note: This is the first in a two-part series on the changing regulatory environment for derivatives trading and processing in Europe. Click Here for Part II – European Regulator Pushes for More OTC Margin and Collateral Requirements While the U.S. is looking toward the next phase of regulatory reform for over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives markets,… Read More >>
