The consultation, part of the watchdog’s Mifid II/Mifir review, is aimed at creating technical standards to enhance the establishment and assessment of investment firms’ order execution and consequently “foster investor protection”.

Last week, the watchdog published new public consultations with the aim of “reducing reporting burden and promoting convergence in the supervisory approach” which included includes five key focuses.

The standards once approved are set to facilitate a consolidated tape provider (CTP) appointment for the EU as well as increased transparency across market factions including more informative pre- and post-trade regimes. 

Read more: ESMA publishes new public consultations as Mifir review continues

Specifically, ESMA’s latest consultation is seeking comments from stakeholders on four main points: how order execution policies should be established – including venue selection and instrument classification; how firms will monitor and assess the effectiveness of their order execution set-ups; how investment firms should deal with client instructions; and the investment firm’s execution of client orders through own account dealing.

The watchdog has confirmed that it will consider all input by 16 October 2024 before submitting a final report of technical standards on order execution policies to the European Commission.

In May, ESMA unveiled a 20-point plan for a more effective and attractive capital market union through a unified approach, with the overarching theme focused on more concrete actions and a holistic approach to change.

Importantly, the regulator made clear that it expected all 20 points to be taken on board holistically. Speaking at the time of the announcement, Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, stated that the European market’s financing needs currently “far exceed” the capacity of the region’s fragmented markets and called for the market to embrace ESMA’s proposals. 

The post ESMA consultation on establishment of order execution policies opened as Mifid II review continues appeared first on The TRADE.

French asset manager, Amundi, has raised concerns with the EU watchdog about its failures to handle data collected from trade repository (TR) reporting.

In a response to the European Securities and Market Authority’s (ESMA) recent consultation on TRs, Amundi highlighted its dismay at the regulator’s confession that it is struggling to confirm figures on trade reports.

ESMA’s TR consultation said: “with regards to the number of reported trades and the number of outstanding trades ESMA has found certain difficulties to ensure consistency and comparability of data across all TRs.”

Amundi replied explaining it is “appalled the entire framework developed with mandatory reporting to regulated TRs does not work.”

“We do not understand how there can be after several years of functioning difficulties in obtaining a clear view on the number of reported trades and the number of outstanding trades.

“We urge ESMA to take steps and make sure that the burdensome obligation to report that we have as asset managers is not useless,” Amundi said.

Amundi also raised concerns that the current TR fee scheme is creating conflicts of interest between the subsided regulator and the paying regulated firms. 

“ESMA is dependent on the contributions of TRs for 6% of its budget… we do not like the principle that the regulator’s cost are passed on to the supervised entities,” Amundi said.

Amundi has urged ESMA to reinforce its governance on the determination of costs passed onto TRs. 

The post Amundi slams ESMA for trade repository failures appeared first on The TRADE.