Numbers game: Mifid guidance adds to swaps trading confusion

Market participants say using strike price to determine trading obligation will be impossible

Regulatory guidance is intended to provide clarity, but a recent document published by the European Securities and Markets Authority (Esma) has done the exact opposite.

Esma’s intention was to tell the industry how to determine which over-the-counter derivatives should be subject to new transparency requirements. Market participants are warning that, as currently drafted, the guidance could instead make it operationally impossible to decide which instruments are supposed to be in scope.

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