DTCC kicks off global data harmonisation plans with derivatives
Thompson: greater standardisation is needed
US post-trade utility the DTCC has issued a series of recommendations on global data harmonisation, beginning with credit derivatives, as part of a grand push to harmonise 30 data fields across global trade repository providers and create a global data dictionary.
The DTCC sent its recommendations to a working group consisting of the International Organisation of Securities Commissions and the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures, both of which are members of the Financial Stability Board, the body which seeks to harmonise financial regulation around the world.
The purpose of the proposed global data dictionary is to bolster financial stability and systemic risk analysis, according to the DTCC, and to “provide a path forward to promote more active dialogue between CPMI IOSCO and the industry in order to address the existing reporting challenges that have emerged due to the jurisdictional implementation of reporting rules,” the organisation said in an official statement.
The DTCC operates a derivatives trade reporting service called the Global Trade Repository, which serves brokers, buy-side firms and corporates in nine jurisdictions across 33 countries. However, it says in the absence of harmonised global data standards across jurisdictions and repository providers, the usefulness of the data that has been gathered so far has been held back by inconsistencies and quality issues.
Following a recent DTCC whitepaper, G20’s Global Derivatives Transparency Mandate, where the firm addressed G20 goals on trade repositories and its perspectives on achieving a harmonised global data set to meet these objectives, the DTCC began efforts to review the GTR’s reported fields across the nine jurisdictions the service currently supports. The DTCC has now proposed that this be extended to 30 fields across all trade reporting repositories, including GTR.
“As the world’s largest global trade repository, DTCC has remained committed to ensuring that the service is able to deliver upon the transparency goals that were called for by the G20 following the financial crisis,” said Larry Thompson, vice chairman of DTCC, general counsel of DTCC and chairman of the board of DTCC Deriv/Serv. “In order to be able to fully capitalise on all of the benefits of this data, greater data standardisation across repositories is required. We welcome feedback from the CPMI IOSCO harmonisation working group and look forward to continuing to work with regulators and the industry on this important initiative.”
The DTCC added that its recommendations on data harmonisation are aligned with ISDA’s perspectives on data quality, which were published earlier this month.
