Making a success of Securities Financing Transactions Regulation

Abstract

This time next year, firms should find themselves progressing well through their Securities Financing Transactions Regulation (SFTR) transaction reporting projects and gearing up to start sending the first records to trade repositories (TRs) across Europe. As with over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives before, transaction reporting is a new endeavour in the securities financing and repo world, with new terminology, new workflows and, inevitably, new concerns arising as the reporting start date approaches. REGIS-TR is one of the largest TRs under the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR), and a future TR for SFTR (pending authorisation from the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) once the service extension application process opens later in 2018), and this paper uncovers some of the high level aspects of SFTR reporting and answers some of the questions being asked about the new regime. Most importantly, the paper takes a look at how firms can make a success of SFTR and avoid a knock on the door from their regulator.