On 23 December 2015, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published a Consultation Paper  (CP) on guidelines regarding the Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (MiFIR) under which ESMA has to develop the implementing details.

The CP seeks stakeholders feedback on future guidance regarding:

• Transaction Reporting;
• Reference Data;
• Order Record Keeping; and
• Clock Synchronisation

The CP specifies individual scenarios applicable to a given transaction or order activity. Each of the scenarios is accompanied with the sample of XML ISO 20022 format to be used by firms to represent the values to be reported.

In addition to the transaction reporting and order record keeping scenarios, the CP provides clarifications on the application of the relevant MiFiD II requirements which were requested by market participants during earlier consultations but could not be addressed by the final technical standards due to the level of detail of such requests. ESMA may need to add further clarifications to this guidance as dialogue with market participants raises new issues.

The consultation is open for comment until 23 March 2016.

Ref: CBIMU 1/2016/1