It is unprecedented in Financial Markets (at least in my memory!) to have so many people working from home globally. We have previously seen localised examples such as on Wall Street after the tragic event of 9/11, but nothing on this global scale. As firms dust off the business continuity plans, some are hitting problems such as systems not allowing remote trading. This requires a tweaking of rule books and system settings. For those deploying a unified, modular platform, the task is somewhat easier when suddenly so many core staff are working from home as any system changes can be made once, and once only.
As we settled down to the first full working week of 2020, ESMA published the latest and final set of papers on the Securities Financing Transactions Regulation (SFTR) with guidelines on reporting structures. This was accompanied by the amended SFTR validation rules and a statement on Legal Entity Identifiers (LEI). The good news is that it now clarifies a number of provisions pertaining to SFTR, alongside some practical guidance.
