The European Securities and Markets Authority has published its Supervisory Convergence Work Programme (SCWP) for 2018.
ESMA said the new programme details the activities and takes it will carry out to promote ‘sound, efficient and consistent’ supervision across the European Union. Many of the SCWP 2017 priorities remain relevant for 2018, however, it also sets new priorities, notably in the areas of financial innovation and the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.
ESMA has identified a number of priorities for supervisory convergence, including ensuring that MiFID II/MiFIR are applied in a sound, efficient and consistent manner across the EU, improving data quality to ensure efficient reporting under various requirements set by EU legislation, ensuring supervisory convergence in the context of the UK’s decision to withdraw from the EU, safeguarding the free movement of services in the EU through adequate investor protection in the context of cross-border provision of services, and monitoring developments in financial innovation, in particular through the analysis of emerging and existing instruments, platforms and technology.
Steven Maijoor, chair, said: “Supervisory convergence is key to ensuring that EU regulatory requirements are applied in a consistent way across the EU, with the aim of supporting investor protection, orderly markets and financial stability while reducing arbitrage risks. 2018 promises to be a significant year in terms of our supervisory convergence work.
“This year, ESMA will focus in particular on the effective application of MiFID II/MiFIR during its first year of application. This entails fulfilling a coordinating role between NCAs to agree on common supervisory priorities, notably to achieve high quality data reporting.”
In the SCWP 2018, ESMA said most of the regulatory activity it is tasked to undertake in 2018, such as developing draft implementing measures under the STS Securitisation Regulation, the Prospectus Regulation, and the EuSEF and EuVECA will support the Capital Markets Union initiative by fostering a genuine single capital market in the EU where businesses can raise capital from a variety of sources and across borders, whilst maintaining effective investor protection.
In the CMU context, ESMA said it is also expecting the Commission to come up with a legislative proposal to facilitate cross-border distribution of investment funds and an action plan in relation to financial innovation.
In the context of MiFID II/MiFIR implementation, ESMA will also monitor the impact of MiFID II/MiFIR on secondary markets and, in case of need, assess whether any of the applicable regulatory tools need to be adjusted. The post-trading area is also expected to be impacted by regulatory work through the proposed CCP Recovery and Resolution Regulation and the revision of EMIR according ESMA.
WITH GDPR coming into force later his late, enabling the transfer of personal data to third country supervisors for supervision and enforcement purposes, ESMA said it will also finalise an administrative arrangement together with IOSCO and in liaison with the national Data Protection Authorities through WP29 and the future European Data Protection Board.
ESMA also proposes to conduct analysis of emerging and existing instruments, such as virtual currencies, platforms, such as Initial Coin Offerings, and technology, which includes tools such as distributed ledger technology. It sets out a range of outputs throughout 2018, including analysis of RegTech test cases, a FinTech licensing mapping exercise and an analysis of the ICO market.
Copyright © 2018 RegTech Analyst
Copyright © 2018 RegTech Analyst
