Greece’s derivatives market adopts LSE reporting service
The Athens Derivatives Exchange will now use the LSE’s UnaVista for EMIR trade reporting in Greece
Greece’s Hellenic Exchanges Group, which runs the Athens Stock Exchange and Athens Derivatives Exchange, has chosen to buy services from the London Stock Exchange to help it cope with tough new European trade reporting rules.
The European Commission’s EMIR legislation, introduced on 12 February 2014, states that all derivatives trades within the 28 member states of the European Union must be reported to a trade repository. The idea behind the rules is to increase transparency in OTC derivatives, which have been linked to the global economic crisis beginning in 2007.
The Greek exchange group will use a delegated reporting service, which is part of the LSE’s UnaVista Trade Repository, to report Greek derivatives trades on behalf of up to 3,000 counterparties. The LSE will also help the Hellenic Exchanges with LEI registration for all market participants in Greece that trade derivatives.
All of the 33 member firms on the Athens Derivatives Exchange will use the LSE’s UnaVista Rules Engine for delegated reporting for up to 32,800 market participants. The idea behind the entire scheme is to reduce counterparty risk – by having trades reported and, from later this year, centrally cleared as well. The Rules Engine takes raw data and validates it, converting it to the format specified by the regulatory and placing it in the UnaVista Trade Repository.
“We are delighted to strengthen our relationship with London Stock Exchange Group through this regulatory reporting infrastructure,” said Dimitris Karaiskakis, chief operating officer, Hellenic Exchanges. “It was imperative to Hellenic Exchanges that we could provide one solution to wholly cover the reporting aspect of the EMIR regulation while being efficient and compatible with our highly diverse market members. Such a streamlined solution gives us confidence that our relationships with member firms and market participants will be strengthened”.
Hellenic Exchanges Group was created in 2000 to bring the newly-formed Athens Derivatives Exchange and the stock market together under a single holding company. The group also owns the Athens Derivatives Exchange Clearing House.
Greece has suffered severely from the global economic crisis, which was partly attributed to the mishandling of obscure, poorly-understood OTC derivatives. Unemployment in the country is now over 28% according to government figures, while the ruling New Democracy party is currently struggling to balance rising domestic anger at government cutbacks against Greece’s dependence on European neighbours such as Germany for financial support, which comes with harsh austerity conditions attached.
