Response to the MiFIR review report on the obligations to report transactions and reference data

FESE fully agrees with ESMA that data quality and completeness are essential for the correct functioning of the legislative requirements, as they are highly data-dependent.

Whilst we acknowledge that improvements are still being made by both ESMA and market participants, there are still some fundamental points that require further consideration and discussion.

Operationally speaking, the main concerns raised by MiFID II/R are related to reference data and reporting, in particular RTS 23. These issues concern the FIRDS/FITRS Database Reporting, CFI code attribution, and matching with MiFIR identifiers, tick sizes, and Legal Entity Identifiers (LEIs). In addition, we would like to make the following observations:

• FESE considers it essential that regulators can exchange reporting data - in certain cases where our Members have experience in reporting to several European regulators, the exchange of information and data is not easy and reporting procedures are not fully harmonised.
• FESE supports the proposal that trading venues and SIs are obliged to submit reference data on a daily basis with a view to increasing the data accuracy of the FIRDS database and would agree with ESMA’s proposal to include OTC instruments that are traded through an SI. We welcome an extension of the scope of this obligation to SIs with a view to providing NCAs with a complete set of information regarding transactions in non-equities executed under a waiver from pre-trade transparency. This would create a level playing field between trading venues and SIs, and increase transparency.
• FESE believes that a trading venue should not be responsible for data not available or not transmitted by members that are not subject to MiFIR or are from a third country.
• FESE observes significant discrepancies in reporting, in particular, because of the different interpretations regarding reporting obligations under MAR and MiFID II/MiFIR. Therefore, we generally agree with an alignment between MAR and MiFID II/MiFIR.