Data Quality

Data quality in transaction reporting is the discipline of making sure every report you submit is complete, accurate and timely, not simply accepted by the receiving system. A report can pass an ARM or trade repository's validation and still be wrong: a mis-stated price, the wrong counterparty, a missing trade, an over-report or a stale valuation. Acceptance confirms the file was well formed. It does not tell you it was right.

It applies across every regime you report under, including EMIR, MiFIR, SFTR, ASIC, MAS and CSA. As regulators move from collecting data to scoring it, the quality of what sits beneath the surface of your submissions has become the difference between confident compliance and costly remediation.

In 2025 the FCA investigated more than 1,000 transaction reporting data quality cases, and firms back-reported over 500 million reports to put things right. ESMA's latest data report expanded its EMIR data quality dashboard from 17 to 25 indicators, benchmarking every firm and feeding market-abuse and systemic-risk surveillance. With the FCA's CP25/32 reshaping the UK regime and UK EMIR reconciliation stepping up on 28 September 2026, the bar is rising on both sides of the Channel.

The cost of getting it wrong is mostly hidden, in rejection handling, in back-reporting at scale, and in regulatory risk that rarely reaches the budget. Most firms can say what they pay their ARM. Very few can quantify what poor data quality is costing them. Bringing that cost into the light, and closing the gap before submission, is what data quality is really about.

Strong data quality controls turn reporting from a reactive, detect-and-fix burden into a controlled, auditable capability. Firms that validate before they submit can expect the following benefits:

• Fewer rejections – Catch errors pre-submission rather than reworking them weeks later.

• Lower correction costs – Cut the hidden cost of remediation, often the largest line you never see.

• Reconciliation-ready – Pair and match with confidence ahead of EMIR reconciliation deadlines.

• Reduced regulatory risk – Demonstrable controls and a clear audit trail when the regulator asks.

• Record-level transparency – See exactly which fields fail, and why, linked to the underlying regulatory text.

• Peer benchmarking – Understand how your data quality compares with the rest of the market.

• Cross-regime coverage – One consistent approach across EMIR, MiFIR, SFTR, ASIC, MAS and CSA.

• Your data stays put – Validation runs without your transaction data ever leaving your infrastructure.

• Faster remediation – Identify, prioritise and fix issues at scale, in minutes rather than weeks.

• Know your data – Answer the regulator before they ask, with evidence.