The reporting of derivatives data to trade repositories is making the European Union’s derivatives markets more transparent, European regulators reported Friday.
The public availability of aggregate data reported to six registered trade repositories is boosting market transparency, as the public availability of the data “allows market participants to monitor the extent, dynamics and trends of derivatives trading in the European Union, including identifying what has been traded on and off-venue,” the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) said in a news release.
Since derivatives reporting began in Europe in February 2014, the six trade repositories have received more than 16 billion submissions, with average weekly submissions topping 300 million, the ESMA reported.
Starting in April of this year, harmonized public data has been made available, on open positions, trade volume and values broken down by derivative class, type, and trade type, which allows market players to aggregate and compare data across trade repositories.
In April alone, more than 200 million new trades were added, the ESMA reported, consisting of exchange-traded derivatives trades (55%); over-the-counter (OTC) (31%); and listed derivatives traded off exchange (14%).
Foreign exchange derivatives were the largest component of OTC trades (56%), with exchange-traded activity mainly split into commodities (33%), equities (27%), and interest rate derivatives (19%) trades.