SmartStream Technologies, a financial Reference Data Utility (RDU) solutions provider, is now supporting derivatives in its Systematic Internaliser (SI) Registry service, to help clients meet the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II) deadline of 15 September, 2020. This allows trading counterparties to identify who is responsible for reporting trades in general, but also the most complex part of the SI Regime which now includes derivatives.
Financial institutions are highly reliant on good quality reference data to ensure they can successfully trade electronically, automate their operations and report accurately to the regulators. The MiFID II SI Regime for derivatives will be the most challenging component which needs to handle a very complex classification scheme. The service further strengthens SmartStream’s partnership with the APA (Approved Publication Arrangements) community as the RDU continues to be the sole distributor of the SI Registry, which provides SI status across equity, fixed income and derivative instruments.
The SI registry is a market initiative where SmartStream in collaboration with a group of APAs, including: Bloomberg, Deutsche Boerse, MarketAxess, TRADEcho and Tradeweb, enable SIs to register, the financial instruments for which they are providing SI services, in a centralised database.
Additionally, the new API (Application Programming Interface) service takes the complexity out of traversing between an ISIN and the associated Classes of Financial Instruments Approach (COFIA) SI status for derivatives – this will drastically simplify a customer’s ability to identify counterparty SI status, allowing for faster adoption and ultimately compliance of the upcoming regulation.
Linda Coffman, Executive Vice President, SmartStream RDU, says: “The derivatives component represents the last phase of the MiFID II SI Regime to be rolled out by the SmartStream RDU development team. We are excited to once again be able to partner with the industry through the APA community and to provide a helping hand to our clients in meeting all of the necessary requirements come September 15”.
The MiFID II SI Regime mandates that the SI test is conducted differently depending on the asset class. For derivatives, the SI determination is based on the volume of trades across a class of instruments, and not just at the ISIN level. To meet the September deadline firms will have to handle a complex ESMA classification scheme in order to be compliant.
