Skip to content
1st April 2019

Market Watch 59

Completeness and accuracy testing

  • The FCA has reminded firms of their requirement for completeness and accuracy testing for transaction reporting.

FCA has stated;

  • firms have a “requirement to conduct regular reconciliation of front office trading records against data samples provided by competent authorities.”

  • “the number of data extract requests we receive suggests some market participants may not be aware of this, or may not be conducting regular or sufficiently thorough reconciliation”

  • “Firms should not assume that a report was accurate because it was accepted by the Market Data Processor, as business validation rules are not intended to identify all errors and omissions”

Data quality issues

  • The FCA has summarised a variety of data quality issues they are seeing – and it's stated it expects Firms should have processes in place to monitor for these issues;

  • “we expect firms to have arrangements in place to report details accurately, and to notify the FCA where inaccurate information is identified.”

RefFieldIssueFCA commentCN test?
1Trading date time (Field 28)UTC Reporting (BST)We continue to see errors in transaction reports when UK clocks transition to and from British Summer TimeY
2Trading date time (Field 28)UTC Reporting (clock synchronisation)Errors driven by inaccurate clock synchronisationImpact analysis required
3Price (Field 33)Should be major currency (eg pounds)We have identified multiple instances of firms misreporting in the minor currency (eg pence)Under development
4Price (Field 33)NOAP or 0We have also noted firms reporting a price of zero or ‘NOAP’ in circumstances not permitted by the applicable guidelinesY
5Venue (Field 36)Segment MIC should be usedThe operating MIC should only be used when a segment MIC is unavailable. The FCA made improvements to validation rule 220 in November 2018 to enforce this requirement. We expect firms to cancel, correct and resubmit all transaction reports affected by this issue.Y
6Buyer (7) / Seller (16)Misreporting of buyer as sellerIt is critical that firms have arrangements in place to report party identifiers accurately.Impact analysis required
7Buyer (7) / Seller (16)Use of LEIThese should include controls to ensure transactions are not entered into prior to a client obtaining an LEI (where the client is eligible for such an identifier).Impact analysis required
8Party IdentifiersDummy national identifiers for natural persons.In some cases, generic ‘dummy’ identifiers have been used (eg GBXX999999X).Under development
9Party IdentifiersReuse of national identifiers for multiple natural persons.Other firms appear to have reused identifiers for multiple clientsUnder development
10Party IdentifiersInaccurate national identifiers for natural persons.Some market participants have reported identifiers that are not in the list of identifiers in RTS 22 Annex II (eg a passport number, where the passport number is not one of the allowable identifiers for the country of the nationality of the individual).Y
11Party IdentifiersNot using 1st priority id for natural personsOther firms have not used the first priority identifier where available (eg using concatenated codes for British nationals with a national insurance number).Y
12Buyer (7) / Seller (16) / Capacity (29)Buyer/seller for AOTCWe have further recorded firms populating buyer and seller fields inconsistently with the trading capacity field. For example, firms reporting themselves as the buyer or seller where the trading capacity is AOTC.Y
13Executing Entity (4)Broker as executing entitySome market participants have incorrectly populated the LEI of the broker they are forwarding an order to in the executing entity field. They should have populated this field with their own identifier.Y
14Instrument ID (41)/ Underlying Instrument ID (47)instrument is not valid on the trade date - reportabilityBefore contacting the FCA about these errors identify whether the instrument (or its underlying) is reportableY
15Instrument ID (41)/ Underlying Instrument ID (47)instrument is not valid on the trade date - incorrect MICBefore contacting the FCA about these errors ensure the MIC code of the trading venue is accurateY
16Instrument ID (41)/ Underlying Instrument ID (47)instrument is not valid on the trade date - incorrect underlying instrument idBefore contacting the FCA about these errors confirm the underlying instrument is populated in the correct part of RTS 22. Such errors frequently occur due to inaccurate population of the underlying instrument in the individual or index element of the XML schema.Y

Errors and Omissions

  • “Where errors or omissions are identified in transaction reports, the ARM, investment firm or trading venue reporting the transaction must correct the information and submit a corrected report to the competent authority”

  • “Market participants must promptly notify the relevant competent authority where they become aware of errors or omissions within a transaction report.”

https://www.fca.org.uk/publication/newsletters/market-watch-59.pdf