With COVID-19 causing unprecedented disruption around the world, ESMA released a welcome statement urging competent authorities to deprioritise supervisory activities around the Securities Financing Transaction Regulation (SFTR) until 13th July 2020.
For phase one firms (Investment Firms and Credit Institutions) who had expected to commence reporting on 13th April 2020 this news will have come as the industry focuses on stabilizing markets, continuing to provide liquidity and adapting to a new remote way of working.
That said, there are still key SFTR implementation challenges which firms will need to address. In this article Capco examines challenges and proposes recommendations in the following areas: