In an unusual reversal of protocol, national regulators have prevailed upon the European Securities and Markets Authority to launch two major projects.

ESMA's first task, which it has accepted with relish, is to provide a central facility in relation to instrument and trading data and the calculation of the Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (MiFIR) transparency and liquidity thresholds – this is to be known as the Instrument Reference Data Project. The second task is to provide a single access point to trade repositories data under the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR) – this is to be known as the Trade Repositories Project.

The national regulators have delegated some tasks related to data collection requirements under MiFIR and the Market Abuse Directive (MAR) to ESMA, as well as the creation of a central access point for regulators to data of the EU’s six trade repositories. Both projects will allow ESMA to collect data directly from market infrastructures (trading venues or trade repositories) and make them available to the national regulators and to the public through a centralised system.

The Instrument Reference Data Project will collect data directly from approximately 300 trading venues in the EU. These venues will send their MiFIR/MAR data to ESMA which will then perform and publish the necessary transparency and liquidity threshold calculations. Once it is up and running, the database will allow national regulators and financial market participants access to all data for financial instruments admitted to trading on EU-regulated markets or traded on MiFID venues (OTFs and MTFs).

The Trade Repositories Project will provide ESMA and 27 regulators with immediate access, through a single platform, to the 300 million weekly reports on derivatives contracts received from 5,000 different counterparties in all the EU's trade repositories. ESMA says that the Instrument Reference Data Project is expected to 'go live' in early 2017, and that the Trade Repositories Project will be fulfilled in 2016.