The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has launched a consultation to overhaul the country’s transaction reporting regime, promising both stronger tools to combat financial crime and a lighter reporting burden for firms.
The overhaul, which is still in the consultation stage, would replace the EU-derived MiFIR technical standards with new rules in the FCA’s Market Conduct sourcebook, the agency said. The effort is intended to “support growth through proportionate regulation and better data to help us fight financial crime and strengthen market integrity,” the consultation said.
Among the potential changes the FCA is considering are:
- Reducing the number of transaction reporting fields from 65 to 52.
- Removing reporting obligations for 6-million financial instruments that are only tradeable on EU trading venues.
- Removing foreign exchange (FX) derivatives from the scope of reporting requirements.
- Reducing the default back reporting period from 5 to 3 years.
- Requiring trading venues to populate fewer fields in their transaction reports, simplifying information provided by over 1,700 international firms when accessing UK markets.
By streamlining the regime, the FCA expects ongoing savings to business of around £115.3 million per year, with reporting exemptions on foreign-exchange derivatives and instruments only tradeable on EU venues generating the most significant cost reductions.
Read the FCA’s consultation paper here