This report fulfils the mandate received by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) from the European Commission (EC) in February 2014 to provide it with an update on the level of convergence of the Indian Accounting Standards (Ind-AS)1 towards International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and the quality of application and enforcement of the Ind-AS, so that the EC can provide a progress report to the Council and the European Parliament (EP) in line with its obligations under Commission Regulation (EC) 1569/2007.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has published its 2017 Work Programme which sets out its priorities and areas of focus for 2017 in support of its mission to enhance investor protection and promote stable and orderly financial markets.

The programme reflects the shift in focus of ESMA’s work, from building the single rulebook, towards ensuring its consistent application across the European Union (EU), as outlined in its 2016-2020 Strategic Orientation. The key areas of focus under ESMA’s activities of supervisory convergence, assessing risks, single rulebook and direct supervision will be:

• Converging supervisory practices on the implementation of MiFIDII/MiFIR ;
• Focusing on data quality;
• Level 2 work on the Benchmarks Regulation and on various initiatives under the umbrella of the Capital Markets Union; and
• Directly supervising credit rating agencies (CRA) and trade repositories (TR), with a particular focus on their ancillary activities given the trend of combining ancillary and core services.