FCA provides timeline for MiFID II testing services

The FCA has published details of how interested parties can register to connect to their MiFID II data submission service and has also announced that they will provide testing facilities six months ahead of MiFID II go-live.

The Market Data Processor (MDP) service replaces the current transaction reporting system Zen and will be operated and supported by a third party, Sopra Steria. The MDP also provides the mechanism for other Data Reporting Service Providers (ARMs, APAs and CTPs), trading venues and systematic internalisers to submit the instrument reference data required under RTS 23 and trade data required by ESMA to calculate the double volume cap as per RTS 3.

Some parties such as our partner UnaVista are developing services to support MiFID II including an instrument static submission service so parties won’t have to register and pay the connection and annual fees to use the MDP service directly. In addition to a substantial cost saving, it has the benefit of validating the data before submitting it to the FCA.

The MDP service specifications will be available to registering parties from the end of September and from Q4 for commodity position reports. A test environment will be available from 1 July 2017 allowing connecting entities and those further down the chain a good deal of time to undertake comprehensive testing prior to the MiFID II go-live date of 3 January 2018.

Sopra Steria will also be managing the data extract service. This is the mechanism by which samples of submitted transaction reports can obtained for testing the veracity and completeness of the submissions. This process is expected to be conducted by all reporting firms as part the controls required to comply with RTS 22 Article 15 paragraph 3.

Useful link: MiFID II Regulatory Technical Standards.