Following the European Securities and Markets Authority’s (ESMA’s) approval of six trade repositories, there is a start-date of 12 February 2014 for derivatives trade reporting under the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR). From 12 February, entities affected by the EMIR reporting obligations will need to report their trades to one of the newly-authorised repositories.

SWIFT have announced that its customers can take advantage of its practical, flexible solutions for derivatives trade reporting, in order to fulfil their EMIR reporting obligations.

Trade repositories will warehouse derivatives trade records, playing a central role in enhancing derivative market transparency and reducing risks to financial stability. Entities impacted by EMIR can reuse their SWIFT infrastructure and take advantage of standardised messaging solutions to send their trade details to the repositories in the most automated, secure and reliable way. In addition, SWIFT confirmations for FX and metals derivatives can be used to share Unique Trade Identifiers (UTIs), a critical enabler for successful reporting.

Among customers leveraging SWIFT for derivatives trade reporting under EMIR is the Belgian banking and insurance group, Belfius Bank, which will use SWIFT’s FileAct messaging service to report its derivatives trades to European trade repository REGIS-TR. Explaining Belfius’ choice of SWIFT, Luc Goossens, Project Management, Financial Markets, Belfius Bank, says: “We considered using a web service-based solution to send trade details to REGIS-TR, but we opted for SWIFT FileAct because it offers better availability and reliability, allows us to send large files and enables better error handling through automated message monitoring.”