ESMA Provides Interim Transparency Calculations For MiFID II

These calculations specify the transparency regime applicable to trading in secondary markets from 3 January 2018, when MiFID II will enter into force.

Steven Maijoor, ESMA Chair, stated:

“Six months from today, the transparency of EU financial and commodities markets will start to improve significantly. Including non-equity products into MIFID II’s scope is a major step forward. It will better help to protect against market abuse and better mitigate systemic risks”

MiFID II introduces transparency requirements for bonds, structured finance products, emission allowances and derivatives with powers for national competent authorities (NCAs) to waive or defer transparency obligations if instruments do not have a liquid market or if an order or transaction exceeds a certain size.

Therefore, ESMA is publishing information on the liquidity classification of financial instruments and the sizes of large in scale (LIS) compared to normal market size and the size specific to the instrument (SSTI). ESMA issues these transparency calculations for all non-equity instruments, except for bonds, which have been classified as liquid in accordance with the MIFID/MIFIR RTS 2. The transparency calculations are based on data submitted by EU trading venues.

The publication of LIS and STTI thresholds per bond type, planned for 3 July 2017, has been delayed as ESMA needs to perform an additional quality review of the information submitted by third parties for this exercise. These interim calculations for bonds will be published in August 2017.

Background

1. Interim transparency calculations for MiFID II  
2. ESMA’s mission is to enhance investor protection and promote stable and orderly financial markets. It achieves these objectives through four activities: 
   1. assessing risks to investors, markets and financial stability; 
   2. completing a single rulebook for EU financial markets; 
   3. promoting supervisory convergence; and 
   4. directly supervising specific financial entities.  
3.  ESMA achieves its mission within the European System of Financial Supervision (ESFS) through active cooperation with the European Banking Authority (EBA), the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA), the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB), and with national authorities with competencies in securities markets (NCAs).