On February 19, EMSA published its 2018 annual report and 2019 work program relating to its supervision of credit rating agencies (“CRAs“), trade repositories (“TRs“) and its monitoring of third-country central clearing counterparties (“TC-CCPs“) and central securities depositories (“TC-CSDs“) (ESMA80-199-273).

The document outlines the supervisory and monitoring activities ESMA undertook in 2018 relating to CRAs, TRs, TC-CCPs and TC-CSDs. A related press release explains that it directly supervises eight TRs and 27 CRAs and it also has responsibility for four certified CRAs and 32 TC-CCPs.

ESMA has identified the following supervisory priorities for 2019:

• Recognition of UK CCPs in a no-deal Brexit scenario.
• For CRAs, the quality of the rating process, portfolio risk and cybersecurity. ESMA will also survey a subset of CRAs to assess the current state of the cybersecurity risk environment.
• TR data quality and access by authorities, IT process and system reliability, business continuity planning and the information security function (as identified by 2018 risk assessments for TRs). In the context of data quality, ESMA will specifically focus on its data quality action plan, the implementation of position calculation reports and the implementation of guidelines on portability.
• For both TRs and CRAs, there will be a focus on fees, the effectiveness of internal control systems, and the use of new technologies.
• Assessing pending applications for recognition as TC-CCPs and TC-CSDs. This involves monitoring to ensure compliance with recognition criteria and equivalence conditions.

ESMA published its general work program in October 2018.