SmartStream Technologies, the financial Reference Data Utility (RDU) solutions provider, has added derivatives to its Systematic Internaliser (SI) Registry service, to help clients meet the rapidly approaching MiFID II deadline of 15 September, 2020. The new service will allow trading counterparties to identify who is responsible for reporting trades in general, but also supports them through one of the most complex elements of the SI Regime.
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.
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.
This makes it imperative that they are able to access and rely on good quality reference data to ensure they can successfully trade electronically, automate their operations and report accurately to the regulators. The latest derivatives 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.
Additionally, the new API (Application Programming Interface) service is designed to reduce the complexity out of traversing between an ISIN and the associated Classes of Financial Instruments Approach (COFIA) SI status for derivatives – aiming to simplify a customer’s ability to identify counterparty SI status.
