Background

In accordance with Article 36 of the Benchmarks Regulation, ESMA started publishing the list of benchmark administrators and third country benchmarks on 3 January 2018 (ESMA’s first working day of 2018). So far, ESMA has published the latest register information on its website daily (ESMA working days) and has made it available for download in csv format.

As of 7 September 2018, the public register interface has become available under https://registers.esma.europa.eu/publication/ . As for all ESMA registers, the portal offers machine-to-machine services to large scale organisations, including a set of web services for retrieval of data maintained in ESMA Registers repositories. For more information, please refer to https://registers.esma.europa.eu/publication/helpApp

The speech focused on the development and future of benchmarks regulation in the European Union. 

The overall BMR Q&A provides a new answer regarding the following topic: 

·       How prospectuses should include reference to the register of administrators and benchmarks.

The purpose of this Q&A is to promote common supervisory approaches and practices in the application of BMR. It aims at providing investors and other market participants with clarifications on the applicable requirements.

ESMA will periodically review these Q&A and update them where required.

The Q&As include one new answer regarding the following topic:

• Requirements applicable to supervised contributors during the transitional period.

The purpose of this document is to be a practical convergence tool used to promote common supervisory approaches and practices in the application of the BMR. It should also help investors and other market participants by providing clarity on the requirements. ESMA will periodically review these Q&As and update them where required.
 

The ECB has set up a working group, together with the Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA), the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) and the European Commission, which is tasked with, among other things, identifying and recommending alternative risk-free rates. Such rates could serve as a basis for an alternative to current benchmarks used in a variety of financial instruments and contracts in the euro area.

The Q&As include two new answers regarding the following topics:

• Commodity benchmarks: how the threshold in the exemption under Article 2(2)(g) of BMR should be calculated; and
• Definition of a benchmark and investment funds: clarification of the cases in which a benchmark is used to measure the performance of an investment fund.

The purpose of this document is to be a practical convergence tool used to promote common supervisory approaches and practices in the application of the BMR. It should also help investors and other market participants by providing clarity on the requirements. ESMA will periodically review these Q&As and update them where required.