On July 9, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published a consultation (the Consultation) regarding draft guidelines (the Guidelines) on the calculation of positions by trade repositories (TRs) under the Securities Financing Transactions Regulation (SFTR).

The aim of the Guidelines is to ensure consistency of position calculation across TRs with regard to the time of calculations, the scope of the data used in calculations, the data preparation, the recordkeeping of data and the calculation methodologies.

ESMA notes that high-quality position data is necessary for the assessment of systemic risks to financial stability by the relevant authorities. These Guidelines intend to also ensure a consistent methodology is used under EMIR and SFTR, while still reflecting the specificities of reporting securities financing transactions.

The closing date for responses to the Consultation is September 15. ESMA will consider the responses to this consultation with a view to finalizing the proposed Guidelines and publishing a final report in Q4 2020 or Q1 2021.

The Consultation is available here, and the Guidelines are available here.