Here comes a press release from ESMA announcing the launch of centralised data projects for MiFIR and EMIR.

Not long after COMET 1 conference in Stockholm and the (not too surprising) revelation from the Swedish FSA that Trade Reporting under EMIR may see a 'version 2', or some sort of upgrade, here comes a press release from ESMA announcing the launch of centralised data projects for MiFIR and EMIR. Of course this press release has nothing to do with a change in the current Trade Reporting under EMIR yet it reveals ESMA's focus on reported data and its intention to facilitate data harmonisation, transparency and access.

At the request of a number of European National Competent Authorities, ESMA is undertaking two projects, the Instrument Reference Data Project and the Trade Repositories Project. The Instrument Reference Data Project is to provide a central facility for instrument and trading data and the calculation of the MiFIR transparency and liquidity thresholds and the Trade Repositories Project is intended to provide a single access point to trade repositories data under EMIR. The Trade Repositories Project, in particular, will provide ESMA and 27 NCAs with immediate access, through a single platform, to the 300 million weekly reports on derivatives contracts received from 5,000 different counterparties across the EU trade repositories.

The concern still remains although the advantages of central solutions are more than obvious. Will the data's quality and format be such in order for useful conclusions to be drawn? It's not enough that data are gathered centrally, the key benefit will arise when these data are used the way they were originally supposed to.

The press release can be found here.

Happy Easter everyone!!!

ML