About a-team Marketing Services
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry

A-Team Insight Blogs

Last Minute Preparations for SFTR: Are You Ready Yet?

Subscribe to our newsletter

The clock is ticking, and the initial SFTR deadline is barely a month away – but with delays, regulatory opacity and widespread industry concerns around the data challenges posed by such a substantial change, is an April implementation even achievable?

Tactical approaches to compliance won’t be good enough. A strategic plan of attack is necessary to combat the complex nature of this regulation. If the mandated dual reporting of SFTs at the repository level requirement as well as the challenges around the use of LEIs when identifying counter parties are not enough, the 155 data fields and data quality standards are sure to cause firms to stumble if not well prepared.

But just how well prepared will they have to be – and what are the top priorities and pain points to watch out for along that pathway? In our upcoming webinar this Thursday, a panel of experts including SmartStream RDU’s Linda Coffman, Deutsche Bank Global Lead for Regulatory Market Initiatives Dawd Haque, JP Morgan’s President of Agencies Securities Lending and Product Development Thomas Pikett, and S&P Director of Product Management Lance Risi, discuss the latest updates to the regulation, including ESMA’s recent 12 month LEI grace period allowance for third country issuers.

“Firms are still scrambling to get their infrastructure set up to meet the SFTR mandates,” warns Coffman. “Some of the data attributes have components that firms are just realizing they need – for instance they need to understand and have access to index constituents in order to derive the correct equity security type which is a field they need to report. If they are relying on a third party to enrich their reporting with reference data, they need to be diligent and make sure that correct licensing is in place. We foresee that security quality and security type will be two fields that firms struggle with when matching with their counterparties.”

Offering practical guidance on how to optimise reporting that will not only be compliant, but also provide business and operational benefits, the webinar will give insight into the right tools, processes and technologies to ensure that your organisation understands the new reference data requirements, and can effectively manage the regulatory burden.

Sign up here to reserve your place.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Related content

WEBINAR

Upcoming Webinar: Post-Trade Transformation: Automating Clearing & Settlement

Date: 1 December 2026 Time: 10:00am ET / 3:00pm London / 4:00pm CET Duration: 50 minutes The UK, EU and Swiss markets move to T+1 settlement on 11 October 2027, but the first binding compression arrives almost a year earlier. ESMA’s amended settlement discipline RTS expects allocation and confirmation completed by 23:00 CET on trade...

BLOG

The Case Against Ripping and Replacing: Why Capital Markets Firms Should Build Intelligence Into What They Already Have

By Neil Vernon, Chief Product Officer, Gresham. For years, capital markets firms have faced the same challenge: modernising sprawling, legacy data systems. Each attempt follows a familiar pattern – ambitious platform overhauls, eight-figure budgets, years of disruption – yet the old systems often remain in use long after the new ones are live. Replacing systems...

EVENT

ExchangeTech Summit London

A-Team Group, organisers of the TradingTech Summits, are pleased to announce the inaugural ExchangeTech Summit London on May 14th 2026. This dedicated forum brings together operators of exchanges, alternative execution venues and digital asset platforms with the ecosystem of vendors driving the future of matching engines, surveillance and market access.

GUIDE

AI in Capital Markets Handbook 2026

AI adoption in capital markets has moved into a more disciplined phase. The priority is now controlled deployment: where AI can be used safely, where it can deliver measurable value, and how outputs can be governed, monitored and evidenced. The 2026 edition of the AI in Capital Markets Handbook examines how AI is being applied...