Sapient Global Markets Extends Solution for MiFIR

Sapient Global Markets has updated its transaction reporting platform, enabling clients to comply with the Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (MiFIR).

The business technology and consulting services provider has updated its Compliance Management and Reporting System (CMRS) platform's internal data dictionaries to encompass MiFIR's requirements, says Peter Meechan, director of business consulting at Sapient in New York.

CMRS connects to trading and risk management systems in a business, collecting and normalizing data from these sources and reporting it to relevant trade repositories, MiFIR's Approved Reporting Mechanisms and approved publication arrangements.

Meechan says the concept of post-trade transaction reporting is not new to Sapient, as the CMRS has been used for real-time reporting under the Dodd-Frank Act, batch reporting under the European Market Infrastructure Regulation and other regulations across jurisdictions.

Says Meechan: "CMRS is a feed-once system. Where many different groups have built specific solutions for different products, different regulatory regimes, different regions, the principle behind CMRS is that every trade is loaded into it and CMRS determines what needs to happen with that trade, maps it out and then transmits it appropriately.

"We had to grow the data dictionary, but the concept of post-trade transaction reporting is nothing new to us."

The final report on the draft technical standards for MiFIR was released in late September. Meechan says Sapient's clients seem most concerned with the requirements for the reporting of personal information. MiFIR will require that both the "decision-maker" and the "beneficiary" of a trade must be identified by information such as a passport number.

"This is probably clients' number one concern and it's a concern for everyone, not just the dealers having to supply their own information. When we look at the third-party reporting, custody clients who are doing reporting on other firms' behalf have an extra step in the process. This also poses a whole new set of questions about how personal information is going to be handled," says Meechan.

"It has to be reported, but it also has to be kept secure from within the organization so that the people who are responsible for doing the reporting should not have access to that data."