AMF Platform Processed 3 Million Mifid II Reports in Five Days

AMF’s platform started receiving reference data from the European Securities and Markets Authority (Esma) last summer, as the French regulator was rehearsing for the trade and transaction reporting rules under the revised Markets in Financial Instruments Directive and Regulation (Mifid II). In November 2017, the system accepted data from Euronext and on January 3, investment firms started submitting their transaction reports. 

“It’s a very ambitious project that regroups all sources of data,” Philippe Guillot, head of markets at AMF, tells WatersTechnology. “This enables us to use them not only for surveillance purposes but also for other purposes in terms of knowledge of the market and its participants.” 

The ICY platform received 3 million trade and transaction reports from over 50 firms within five days of Mifid II taking effect. 

Alexandra Givry, head of market surveillance at AMF, says that so far, the vast majority of firms have been able to cope with the large amount of information they have had to submit in their reports.  “Some of the firms are not perfectly ready, but most of them have been able to submit every part as they were supposed to do. However, we still need to assist some firms that experience difficulties,” she says. 

Guillot says the platform was designed to take in and process large amounts of data, as the new regulation dictates. “The recordings we are receiving with Mifid I were just a quarter of the recordings we are receiving now with Mifid II in terms of length, and the reported instruments have also increased,” he says. “It made sense to build a scalable platform, as we expected an increase in data volumes.” 

The ICY platform not only serves as a data collection and processing system but also as a distribution center. Guillot says AMF is using ICY as a hub to redistribute information on financial instruments that has been reported to the AMF to other national competent authorities (NCAs) and Esma. 

According to Givry, the regulator plans to expand the platform’s functionalities with the creation of alerts, and analysis of large volumes of data. “We are implementing new alerts, which will use all the content and information that we now receive thanks to Mifid II,” she says. “With the new regulation, we have more granular information, especially relating to client identification, but also to trader identification, algorithm identification, etc.” 

AMF is also experimenting with artificial intelligence to make ICY more efficient. “We will use machine-learning algorithms to have more efficient alerts. We want to use it to reduce the number of false positives from the detection system,” Givry says. “It could also be used to help us identify insider trading.”