The Luxembourg National Competent Authority Commision de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) on 1st of February has published a press release, regarding monitoring the quality of transaction reports under MiFIR.
The number of investment firms with MiFIR reporting obligation under CSSF authority has fallen slightly in comparison to 2020 (from 134 to 128) however the number of received reports has risen from 30.3 million to nearly 37 million. CSSF inform on quality and completeness campaigns they have conducted in 2021 and reveal their plans for 2022.
The reviews are done on quarterly basis and investment firms are expected to take appropriate remedial actions as soon as possible. CSSF reiterates the need for remediation issues indicated in the current campaign, as well as the campaigns finalised in previous years.
CSSF is one of the NCAs particularly active in the area of MiFIR data accuracy and completeness carrying out activities beyond the tests developed with ESMA and other European NCAs. Control Now's TR Accuracy tool can help reporting firms to prepare for those checks – below we present how our product can help in regards to areas of focus in 2021 as well as 2022.
2021
INTC
The CSSF identified the following issues in reports using the aggregate client account (INTC):
INTC accounts not flat at the end of any business day for unique instrument (quantity bought vs quantity sold)
No order grouping recognised: Single transfer into and out of the INTC account for a unique instrument
One client order in multiple executions: All records into and out of the INTC account identify the same counterparty
All the above checks are executed in our ‘INTC Reconciliation’ validations and MI report (M2, M207, M212, M220, M243, M255). The inconsistencies in the data for all 3 cases are highlighted for client review and a detailed report consisting of all involved transactions is created as a supporting document.
TV TIC
CSSF were verifying if entities reporting a Luxembourg Trading Venue (i.e. MIC code under CSSF jurisdiction) in ‘Trading Venue’ field are indeed members of this venue. Control Now TR Accuracy tool is checking this according to the reference data provided by the client (M7, M8, M36). The second validation made by CSSF was format of provided TV TICs for venues under their jurisdiction. Control Now ‘TV TIC’ MI report provides a full breakdown of all venues reported which indicate whether TV TIC is expected or not and supplies the user with a sample of 10 TV TICs from each distinct venue to verify if format is as expected. Control Now TRA tool is also flagging all transactions where TV TIC was not provided, but should have been (M37) and whether TV TIC was reported with the same value as TRN (M134).
Natural Persons Identification
CSSF were verifying correctness of used identifiers for Natural Persons identified in MiFIR reports in fields related to Buyer, Seller and Buyer/Seller Decision Makers (fields 7, 12, 16, 21 of RTS22). Their focus was on whether the correct type of identifier was used for both EEA and non-EEA nationals (EU vs UK rules), the priority of identifier type used, as well as if the used ID was following a format pre-defined by each countries’ authorities. All the above are being verified by TR Accuracy tool in a form of validations:
for Buyer ID: M55, M56, M58, M168, M174, M259
for Seller ID: M63, M64, M66, M170, M176, M261
for Buyer Decision Maker: M59, M60, M62, M169, M175
for Seller Decision Maker: M67, M68, M70, M171, M177
We are also executing similar set of validations for National IDs reported in field 57 and 59 (Investment decision within firm and Execution within firm) (12 validations) TR Accuracy also supports firms with verifying the consistency of use for all NP identifiers (i.e. different ID used for the same person and vice versa). This can be monitored using the ‘Inconsistent NP ID usage’ MI report. Additionally, users of TR Accuracy will be alerted if surname prefixes or titles have been used in reported CONCAT codes when they shouldn't have been (CONCAT Prefix MI).
Price/Quantity
CSSF were looking into reported trade economics, investigating population of fields: Quantity, Price, Price currency and Net amount. Several inconsistencies were identified, however the analysis is still ongoing on CSSF side. They are noting that some of the findings may be false positives. TR Accuracy covers the same areas, by executing various validations inspired by examples from the MiFIR Guidelines document, MiFIR RTS 22, other regulatory sources and market standards. In total CN have developed 21 validations covering the fields in focus:
Quantity (M117, M118, M230, M231, M247, M250)
Price (M20, M21, M22, M97, M103, M111, M213, M216, M217, M218, M219, M249)
Price currency (M214)
Net amount (M23, M132)
Our Management Information repors are also providing useful information that can be used to remediate related issues: ‘Bonds MI’ is indicating what types of price and quantity is expected for various types of bonds, showing the aggregation of reported debt instrument types as well as verifying correctness of values in ‘Net Amount’ field including accrued coupons information provided by the user. The 'Unit Price Spread MI' presents user with an aggregation of highest and lowest prices reported for each exchange traded instrument and indicating where the difference between the prices may mean misreporting. Overall Control Now TR Accuracy MiFIR module executes over 5k validation cases based on 220+ logic rules and present user with 25 MI reports. Data is presented in a self-explanatory format that is easy to read and allows for drilling down to details level per TRN. Each validation is supported by our interpretation of the flag and supplemented with regulatory text and hyperlink.
2022
The following areas were indicated as focus for the upcoming 12 months.
Error messages
CSSF informs that they will be focusing on records rejected based on the ESMA defined validations (error codes CON-xxx) that remain outstanding for corrections. CN have built a Core Validations module which is planned for go live in Q2 2022. The new module focuses on recreating the validations as executed by NCAs and will provide users with granular indication of the validation failures alongside full explanation of the validation logic while pointing users to the required remediation.
Data Quality
CSSF reiterates the importance of data quality and reminds firms that incomplete, inaccurate or missing transaction reports may constitute a serious infringement and initiate administrative sanctions and fines.
Update of ESMA Validation rules
CSSF also remind firms of the upcoming validation changes published by ESMA in October and going live in Q2 2022. We wrote about this update here and have implemented the new and changed validations as a part of our Accuracy solution to help firms prepare for the forthcoming changes.