03 July 2018

ESMA publishes 2017 Annual Report

In 2017, ESMA continued to make progress in its mission of enhancing investor protection and promoting stable and orderly financial markets. ESMA focused on delivering the following key priorities in its 2017 annual work programme:

Supervisory convergence: implementation of MiFID II and MiFIR.

Assessing risks: focus on data quality.

Single rulebook: Benchmarks and Capital Markets Union.

Direct supervision: supervision of CRAs and TRs and their ancillary activities.

2017 marked the year that ESMA became a truly integral part of EU capital markets infrastructure through data reporting and associated IT systems, built to ensure that MiFID II/MiFIR drives positive change for the market.

For MiFID II to succeed in 2018, it was crucial that ESMA effectively prepared markets, NCAs and our own IT systems and processes throughout 2017. The underlying IT infrastructure that is pivotal to the implementation of MiFID II / MiFIR demanded ESMA’s full attention. With the increased scope of regulatory requirements on reporting entities in the areas of reference data, transparency, double volume cap and transaction reporting, it was crucial that ESMA undertook the groundwork in 2017 to ensure a smooth transition into the reporting regimes under MiFID II. To assist market participants with the new reporting requirements, ESMA released technical requirements and templates providing detail about the relevant reporting requirements and began data collection in 2017.

Going beyond MiFID II/ MiFIR, ESMA has made a significant contribution to ensuring the sound, efficient and consistent implementation of new EU legislation, while maintaining a strong emphasis on all aspects of supervisory convergence. ESMA’s work on supervisory convergence in 2017 has covered a wide range of topics ranging from investor protection, convergence in the supervision of EU CCPs to improving the quality of data collected by NCAs.

ESMA is a forward-looking organisation. 2017 has increased the responsibilities of this organisation, not just with the implementation of MiFID II /MiFIR. We have also prepared for possible future changes by closely monitoring the proposals put forward by the Commission in September 2017 in the ESAs review. What ESMA has achieved and learnt as an organisation over the last years, and has further built on in 2017, will prove invaluable in the years ahead. Putting us in a stronger position to meet our objectives of enhancing the protection of investors and promoting stable and orderly financial markets, whatever the co-legislators will decide on the various legislative proposals that are currently under consideration.

In this important and challenging year, the commitment and professionalism of all my ESMA colleagues has been for me the defining theme of 2017. I want to thank everyone who has contributed to delivering this extremely busy agenda, in a year that truly demonstrated the capabilities, strengths and commitment of this organisation and its staff.

Full Annual Report

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