(Only in Italian)
With Operational Notice of 14 March 2022, Euronext Securities Milan inform that, starting from 2 May 2022, all trades concluded on not garanted bonds and sent by Euronext Securities Milan to the relevant ICSDs for settlement (i.e. routing service), will be grouped by sign and account type (grouping) under the same ISIN.
For actions in the coming months, the ECB will focus on the following areas:
- Asset purchase programme (APP). Monthly net purchases under the APP will amount to €40 billion in April, €30 billion in May and €20 billion in June. The calibration of net purchases for the third quarter will be data-dependent and reflect its evolving assessment of the outlook.
- Key ECB interest rates. The interest rate on the main refinancing operations and the interest rates on the marginal lending facility and the deposit facility will remain unchanged at 0.00%, 0.25% and -0.50% respectively.
- Pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP). In the first quarter of 2022, the Governing Council is conducting net asset purchases under the PEPP at a lower pace than in the previous quarter. It will discontinue net asset purchases under the PEPP at the end of March 2022.
- Refinancing operations. The Governing Council will continue to monitor bank funding conditions and ensure that the maturing of operations under the third series of targeted longer-term refinancing operations (TLTRO III) does not hamper the smooth transmission of its monetary policy. The Governing Council will also regularly assess how targeted lending operations are contributing to its monetary policy stance.
- Liquidity lines with non-euro area central banks. In view of the highly uncertain environment caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the risk of regional spillovers that could adversely affect euro area financial markets, the Governing Council decided to extend the Eurosystem repo facility for central banks (EUREP) until 15 January 2023.
ESMA is closely monitoring the impact of the Ukraine crisis on financial markets and is prepared to use its relevant tools to ensure the orderly functioning of markets, financial stability and investor protection. This is part of the European Union’s overall response to the tragic consequences of Russia’s military aggression.
To ensure stakeholders are adequately informed, ESMA outlines below its specific supervisory and coordination activity, as well as recommendations to financial market participants:
Supervisory and coordinating activities
- CCPs – ESMA is closely monitoring CCP related volatility and margin developments in energy and commodities market segments. It is also in close contact with NCAs focussing on the impact on clearing members and their clients in those markets;
- Credit Rating Agencies – ESMA continues to actively engage with CRAs to ensure sufficient transparency around ratings and is monitoring the impact of sanctions on CRAs’ operations in close cooperation with other regulators;
- Benchmarks – ESMA is engaging with its supervised benchmarks administrators to verify the impact of market developments and sanctions on the provided benchmarks. It is also engaging and coordinating with NCAs regarding the impact on benchmarks provided by the administrators under NCAs’ supervisory remit;
- Investment Management – ESMA has reinforced its coordination role by monitoring investment funds, organising frequent exchanges with NCAs to analyse market developments and supervisory risks linked to the crisis, focusing on liquidity issues and the use of liquidity management tools (LMTs) and monitoring issues relating to valuation of assets and potential suspension of redemptions;
- Secondary markets – ESMA and NCAs are monitoring the market situation, and ESMA is assisting NCAs with the consistent implementation of sanctions by market operators including the suspension of trading in instruments by venues;
- Central Securities Depositories – ESMA is monitoring, in coordination with NCAs, the impact of sanctions on CSDs’ operations and assisting with their implementation in a consistent manner. It is also consolidating data on the levels of settlement fails as one of the indicators to monitor market developments;
- Cyber Security – ESMA is facilitating the collection and sharing of information and experiences among NCAs regarding cyber incidents; and
- Risk assessment – ESMA continuously monitors the risks to market participants and financial stability and exchanges its risk assessment regularly with policy makers and authorities at national, EU and international level.
Market Recommendations
- Sanctions Compliance – financial market participants should ensure they comply with the relevant EU sanctions and monitor for any further restrictions. The European Commission (EC) will provide clarity and answer queries on the scope and implementation of these and ESMA is supporting the EC in collecting such queries;
- Market disclosure – issuers should disclose as soon as possible any inside information concerning the impacts of the crisis on their fundamentals, prospects, and financial situation in line with their transparency obligations under the Market Abuse Regulation, unless the conditions for a delayed disclosure are met; and
- Financial Reporting – issuers should provide transparency, to the extent possible on both a qualitative and quantitative basis, on the actual and foreseeable direct and indirect impacts of the crisis on their business activities, exposures to the affected markets, supply chains, financial situation and economic performance in their 2021 year-end financial report if these have not yet been finalised and in the annual shareholders’ meeting or otherwise in their interim financial reporting disclosures.
The European Commission adopted on 25 November 2021 its proposal for a review of MiFIR on enhancing market data transparency, removing obstacles to the emergence of a consolidated tape, optimising the trading obligations and prohibiting receiving payments for forwarding client orders.
ESMA is fully supportive of the Commission’s efforts to deliver on the implementation of the Capital Markets Union (CMU), including through the MiFIR review proposals. In particular, ESMA focuses on the following areas in its letter:
- Consolidated Tape Providers;
- Equity and non-equity transparency;
- Reporting;
- Payment for order flow (PFOF).
