Here in Canary Wharf, at least, all of the ongoing fuss about Brexit distracted us from a key regulatory milestone: the introduction on July 4 for the EU’s Market Abuse Regulation (MAR), the real-life incarnation of its earlier foray into financial crime: the Market Abuse Directive (MAD).
We could all be forgiven for worrying about Brexit: it seems the merger of LSE and Deutsche Boerse is going ahead, at least for the time being; various Europeans have been making lots of noise about moving euro-denominated clearing from London; and in the past day or so French politicians have made it clear that they hope to make Paris the financial capital of the euro once the Brits are out.
Our sister publication – Data Management Review – this week launched a readers’ poll on the topic (we’ll do the same for Intelligent Trading Technology), and early results suggest our marketplace isn’t too optimistic about Brexit’s impact on London financial services and the wider financial data and technology community. With voting open for just a few days, some 90% of respondents believe Brexit will have a negative effect on commercial prospects, with many believing core functions will depart for greener pastures, with Frankfurt, Dublin and Paris leading the race.
But back to the matter in hand: MAR.
This was a topic of discussion at our recent Intelligent Trading Summit in New York, where panellists suggested its impact could be perhaps more far-reaching than some in the marketplace believe. Indeed, one of our panellists – OneMarketData’s Dermot Hariss – suggests that MAR could be the catalyst for a more holistic approach for firms’ seeking broader regulatory compliance.
In his discussions with clients, Hariss believes many are looking to see how they can leverage their ‘tactical’ MAR solutions to launch more strategic solutions to the likes of MiFID II, EMIR and BCBS 239. Indeed, some aspects of MAR compliance won’t become clear until MiFID II has been finalised, and this may have implications for how trading firms store and organise their transaction data for future access in response to regulators’ queries.
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