The FCA have today issued their response to the ESAs 24 November FFX announcement. It is brief and is worth reading in full as a masterclass in ironic prevarication and understatement. Highlights below (emboldening is ours): “The amendments to the RTS should become increasingly clear over time and we would expect firms to make their […]

Introduction On 29 September 2017, the European Banking Authority (EBA) published an opinion on the design of a new prudential framework for investment firms. The new regime will apply to all MiFID firms, including those that will be brought into scope by MiFID II. The EBA makes a total of 62 recommendations in the following […]

The transatlantic trading platform cousins have officially been recognised as twins, on 5 November the European Commission announced its long-promised equivalence decision in respect of U.S. swap execution facilities. The CFTC plans to reciprocate by exempting MTFs and OTFs from U.S. registration requirements. The mutual recognition comes just in time before the 3 January 2018 […]

With a scant 28 days until the MiFID 2 starting gun sounds, Regulatory Change managers could be forgiven for looking forward to a well-deserved rest. In reality, 3 January 2018 will actually represent the beginning of a long process of clarification, refinement and final implementation. In this slightly dispiriting context, it is not surprising that […]

A persistent background of abnormally low rates and flattened yield curves combined with increased regulation and capital requirements, has long mandated that the easiest way for banks to “make” money has been for them to save it. The industry has generally failed in this regard. Despite large-scale reductions in head count, physical relocation to north- […]

On 24 November the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) released their long (in context) awaited forbearance announcement with respect to the margining or not of forward foreign exchange. A short summary follows: Everyone else agreed to this but didn’t follow on Our hands are tied and we will need to change EU law Likely changes will […]

A brief spotlight through the fog swirling around the upcoming obligation to exchange margin on forward foreign exchange. There was a widespread, if only whispered, expectation that a 7/8 November ESMA Board of Supervisors meeting would result in an official announcement of forbearance. While the EU has no equivalent mechanism to the CFTC’s enthusiastic use […]

The European Commission has quietly buried its TBTF ringfence proposal. At least to the financial community, the contents of Tuesday’s publication of the Commission Work Programme for 2018 were more notable for what they omitted. Under the aspirational subtitle “A Deeper and Fairer Economic and Monetary Union”, Annex III of the Programme contains nine financial […]

On 19 October 2017, ESMA published its “first-time overview” of the EU derivatives market – a study of the size of the EU derivatives market based on aggregated data sourced from the 6 EU-authorised trade repositories. The analysis takes the most updated values of all derivatives contracts with open interest at the end of 24 […]