One-of-a-kind regulatory reporting

UnaVista, London Stock Exchange Group’s global hosted platform for all matching, validation and reconciliation needs, was named best regulatory reporting platform in this year’s Operational Risk Awards. Tom Wieczorek, head of product management, describes how the platform helps firms reduce operational and regulatory risk across all asset classes via a single interface.

Operational Risk: How is UnaVista meeting the need for regulatory reporting by its clients?

Tom Wieczorek: UnaVista has been working with the industry for years to help firms comply with reporting regulations such as the European Market Infrastructure Regulation and Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (Mifid). We aim to make the process as simple and painless as possible for firms, while providing the tools to use their own data to improve operational and reporting processes.

UnaVista is flexible enough to work in the way that best suits the reporting firm. Firms can do all the work themselves and submit data in a specified format for each regulation. Alternatively, we can use our Rules Engine to take in raw data from all of their source systems, provide additional bespoke validation, enrich with our unique reference data and then determine which regulation – of the dozen or so we cover – that data is relevant for. In this second scenario, UnaVista acts as a global regulatory reporting hub, where clients get a single view of their data across all jurisdictions and regulations. All of the exceptions, reporting and audit trail are in one place, allowing firms to reduce duplication of work by using the same data in multiple places. Firms also gain efficiencies, leverage best reporting practices and gain powerful business insight by viewing all their transactional data on a single platform.

 

Operational Risk: What are the client segments in which you are seeing the greatest growth?

Tom Wieczorek (left): UnaVista is very active in helping European Union firms transition from Mifid to Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (Mifir), as well supporting growing demand from US firms with North American and global reporting obligations. In addition to reporting, the adjacent ‘systems and controls’ functions such as reconciliations, analytics and surveillance are gaining popularity, as firms want tools to effectively manage their compliance obligations. 

 

Operational Risk: What differentiates UnaVista from other regulatory reporting offerings?

Tom Wieczorek: We want to help firms do more than just comply with regulation, which is why we have a suite of services in place to help firms report correctly and get the best systems and controls in place. Services such as three-way reconciliations, independent data quality assurance, certified regulatory training courses and eligibility checks are all available to help firms with the specific areas that the regulators are looking at.

UnaVista also has the largest community in Europe for Mifid reporting, which allows us to provide firms with some unique insights into how their reporting compares to their peers. Using anonymised peer-to-peer analysis, we can identify where firms are leading the way and where they need to improve.

UnaVista G20 Reporting allows firms to report across many jurisdictions using a single data source. UnaVista partners with the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation and SIX Swiss Exchange to provide complete G20 Reporting coverage, where all the data can be viewed and managed in a single place.

Many firms take advantage of the unique range of services UnaVista offers to improve their reference data. UnaVista has access to a range of reference data sources including the European Securities and Markets Authority’s MiFID eligibility file and UnaVista’s own SEDOL Masterfile. London Stock Exchange is also a pre-local operating unit for legal entity identifiers (LEIs) and UnaVista is the technology that hosts the entire database and allocates them. This gives firms the ability to cross-reference that database. 

 

Operational Risk: Given the growing weight of regulatory reporting, is it becoming difficult to keep up to speed with all the requirements in different jurisdictions?

Tom Wieczorek: It is true there is an increasing number of reporting regimes and the complexity of these regimes is also increasing, but this is not all bad news for reporting firms. We believe there is an opportunity for firms to make the most of the data they are collating for these regulations. In many cases the same data can be reused for multiple jurisdictions. Using big data analytics means firms can now monitor their reported data in real time to recognise patterns and problems almost instantly, creating countless opportunities and efficiency improvements.

 

Operational Risk: With Mifir reporting bringing increased scope and complexity to the market, how are you helping customers with this major change?

Tom Wieczorek: As the largest Mifid-reporting service in Europe, we have worked hard to help guide clients and market participants through the regulatory changes. In conjunction with working with regulators and industry bodies, we have been holding webinars and working groups with clients to help the market understand the implications of these changes. 

We have also developed a number of technology solutions to help reporting firms to prepare to go live. Our Mifir Accelerator is a project tool for firms to prepare and test their data. They can upload individual data sources to the tool, validating them against the most up-to-date regulatory technical standards and giving them percentage completion rates. The LEI data management tool allows firms to ascertain which LEIs they will need for their funds or potential counterparties. They can then apply for any required LEIs through the tool and create client watchlists to monitor their entities and counterparties.

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