ESMA postpones the annual calculations of LIS and SSTI for bonds and the quarterly bonds liquidity assessment
The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU’s securities markets regulator, has decided to postpone the publication of sizes large in scale compared to the standard market size (LIS) and the size specific to the instrument (SSTI) as well as the May quarterly bonds liquidity assessment. The amended regulatory technical standards (RTS 2) and the move to stage 3, will enter into force on 3 May 2022.
ESMA, to ensure that the transparency calculations at the application date set out in RTS 2 reflect the move to stage 3 in the amended RTS 2 for bonds, will:
- publish the 2022 annual transparency calculations of LIS and SSTI for bonds on 3 May instead of 30 April under Article 17 of RTS 2. The remaining annual transparency calculations for non-equity instruments other than bonds will be published on 29 April 2022. The application date for the annual transparency calculations of both bonds and other non-equity instruments remains 1 June 2022; and
- postpone the publication of the quarterly liquidity assessment for bonds foreseen on 1 May 2022 to 3 May 2022. The application date remains 16 May 2022.
ESMA also reminds stakeholders that Article 17 of RTS provides for an automatic phase-in for the determination of the liquidity of corporate and covered bonds that are newly admitted to trading or first traded on a trading venue. The liquidity status is determined on the basis of the issuance size. From 3 May 2022 the applicable threshold for corporate and covered bonds will be EUR 500,000,000 (stage 3).
Market participants are invited to:
- monitor the release of the transparency calculations for newly traded bonds and derivatives on a daily basis; and
- refer to Q&A #10 and #15 (for bonds) #20 (for instruments other than bonds) in Section 4 Non-equity transparency, for the temporary parameters to be applied in the case one or more of the transparency parameters are not published.
The amended RTS 2 submitted by ESMA in July 2021 to the European Commission, proposing the move to stage 3 for bonds, has been published in the Official Journal on 13 April 2022.
Further information:
Dan Nacu-Manole
Communications Officer
✆ +33 (0)1 58 36 52 06