The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU’s financial markets regulator and supervisor, is publishing today technical standards on different aspects of the Central Securities Depositories Regulation (CSDR) Refit.
The rules relate to the information to be provided by European CSDs to their national competent authorities (NCAs) for the review and evaluation process, to the criteria for assessing the importance of European CSDs in a host Member State and to the information to be notified by third-country CSDs.
The technical standards are set out in three separate final reports:
- The review and evaluation process of EU CSDs, where ESMA suggest a harmonisation of the information to be shared by CSDs for feeding the overall assessment of the competent authorities, plus a one-year implementing period for the new reporting items that will require an adaptation of the IT processes of CSDs.
- The criteria under which the activities of an EU CSD in a host Member State could be considered of substantial importance for the functioning of the securities markets and the protection of investors. It includes details about the data collection process for the indicators needed to assess the substantial importance of European CSDs in a host Member State. This will be the basis to determine the CSDs for which colleges of supervisors have to be established.
- The notifications from third country CSDs, where ESMA is proposing to streamline the information to be notified, aiming for an accurate understanding of the provision of notary, central maintenance and settlement services in the Union.
The CSDR Refit aims to fine-tune and clarify the CSDR framework. All the Final Reports published today considered the input from the relevant stakeholders and the cross-cutting effort of regulatory burden reduction when possible.
Next Steps
The three final reports with the draft technical standards have been submitted to the European Commission (EC) for adoption.
