ESMA final report on the simplification of financial transaction reporting

On 2 July, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published its final report on the simplification of financial transaction reporting under the Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (MiFIR), the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR) and the Securities Financing Transactions Regulation (SFTR), together with a factsheet. This follows the interim report published in May which provided a summary of feedback to its June 2025 call for evidence on how to simplify and streamline reporting.  

ESMA recommends a phased reform programme combining short-term burden reduction with a long-term structural reform. At the centre of this strategy is the development of a long-term “report once” model, under which firms would submit data through a single, modular reporting framework capable of serving multiple regulatory and supervisory purposes. This aligns with the “scenario 2a” approach (which evolved from “option 2a” in ESMA’s June 2025 call for evidence). On dual-sided reporting, the final report confirms that a full transition to single-sided reporting was not retained because those data points which are currently reported are used to assess data quality.   

In the shorter term, ESMA proposes a series of simplification measures to provide more immediate burden reduction including streamlining intragroup exemptions, reducing or removing certain reporting fields and reconciliation requirements, simplifying error and omission notifications, and reviewing dual-sided reporting requirements, among other measures mentioned in section 5.2 of the report. ESMA will now engage with EU institutions on the policy recommendations, with implementation requiring legislative amendments and phased development of common reporting standards and infrastructure.

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