The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has entered into a conditional agreement to sell its Approved Reporting Mechanism (ARM) known as the Transaction Reporting System (TRS) to the London Stock Exchange (LSE) for £15m.
The TRS is an ARM established in the UK market for the reporting of transactions in regulated instruments by firms to the FSA in accordance with SUP 17 of the FSA Handbook and the Market in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID). The FSA uses this information to detect and investigate suspected cases of market abuse, insider trading, market manipulation and is also used as part of its monitoring of supervised firm activity.
The introduction of MiFID in November 2007 increased the volume, scope and constituent of firms obliged to report and subsequently established a reporting regime and systems through which transactions are reported, known as ARMs. The FSA developed the TRS to provide firms with a method for meeting their MiFID reporting obligations. There is now a competitive market for the provision of transaction reporting services to the industry, in which the LSE operates its own ARM service through its UnaVista platform.
The FSA is confident that the ARM market is now sufficiently developed to enable firms to meet their reporting obligations to the FSA. The FSA therefore concluded that maintaining an ARM no longer formed part of its core role as a regulator. Following a lengthy and competitive sale process the FSA carefully selected an established operator in the London Stock Exchange, which will enable existing customers of TRS to fulfil their ongoing reporting obligations. In addition, the LSE's UnaVista system offers additional services beyond those which are currently offered by TRS, which may be of benefit to TRS clients. The LSE plans to migrate TRS customers to its UnaVista platform on completion of the transaction.
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