Steven Maijoor, Chair of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), today gave a speech at the International Securities Lending Association’s (ISLA) 25th Annual Securities Finance and Collateral Management Conference.
The speech covers issues related to the availability of collateral and the reporting of repos and securities lending trades. He highlighted the importance of collateral management innovations and services that seek to improve the fluidity of collateral movements or the efficiency of collateral allocation in order to reduce the probability of collateral shortage.
According to Maijoor, the current work of regulators on measures to estimate the re-use of collateral will also play a major role in our understanding of the potential risks and benefits associated with this practice. He also elaborated on the current work on defining the SFT reporting regime in the EU, in particular the Regulation on Securities Financing Transactions (SFTR), and the need for regulators to be able to monitor the evolution of SFT markets, the availability of collateral, and innovations such as new forms of collateral, and new types of trades.
The ESMA statement and the full text of the speech are available here.