20 April 2022

ESMA's Ross: speech at ECMI/CEPS Webinar

ESMA’s Direct Supervision role;..driving forward the integration and transparency of the EU financial markets, focusing particularly on the most recent proposals by the Commission on the European Single Access Point (ESAP) and the consolidated tape.

In today’s Webinar I would like to reflect on two topics: Firstly, ESMA’s Direct Supervision role,
what it consists of, how it has evolved over time, what are its key principles, and key challenges for the future. Secondly, I would like to cover ESMA’s role in further driving forward the
integration and transparency of the EU financial markets, focusing particularly on the most
recent proposals by the Commission on the European Single Access Point (ESAP) and the
consolidated tape.

ESMA’s direct supervision mandate
ESMA’s first supervision mandate was that regarding credit rating agencies (CRAs). In July
2011 ESMA was appointed as the sole supervisor in the EU for CRAs. ESMA was given the
power to register CRAs, monitor their activities and make supervisory decisions. As of today,
there are 29 CRAs in the EU registered with ESMA located in 13 different member states.1
Since 2011, ESMA has expanded its supervisory mandate. The European Market
Infrastructure Regulation (2012) and the Securities Financing Transaction Regulation (2015)
gave ESMA direct responsibilities regarding the registration and supervision of EU-based trade
repositories (TRs) as well as the recognition of third country-based TRs. In 2017, the
Securitisation Regulation added the mandate of securitisation repositories (SRs), which play a
central role in enhancing the transparency of securitisation markets. More recently, data
reporting services providers (DRSPs), administrators of EU critical benchmarks, and third
country central counterparties (CCPs) were added to ESMA’s supervisory mandate.
The entities supervised by ESMA play a fundamental role in the EU’s financial markets
infrastructure, guaranteeing the transparency and integrity of the EU’s financial system. By
definition, ESMA’s direct supervisory role also enhances the integration of the EU’s capital
markets, a key objective of the EU.

The growth in ESMA’s supervision role is reflected in the number of its supervisory staff that
has increased from 18 people in 2012 to 75 staff in 2022, all of them excellent professionals,
dedicated to supervision and with deep understanding of their respective sectors and entities
and a truly European mindset....

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