On August 19, as part of a response to a request from the Financial Stability Board (FSB), the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) and the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) published a joint consultative report (Report) entitled “Harmonization of the Unique Transaction Identifier.” The Report represents a further stage in the ongoing reform of the over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives market being led by the G20 countries, which, as part of their continued commitment to improve transparency, mitigate systemic risk and protect against market abuse, previously agreed that OTC derivatives transactions should be reported to trade repositories (TRs) and that such data be aggregated to ensure that relevant authorities are able to obtain a comprehensive view of the OTC derivatives market generally and transaction activity specifically.

The ultimate aim of publishing the Report is to help develop relevant parameters for a uniform global unique transaction identifier (UTI)––something that was considered critical by the FSB in its Aggregation Feasibility Study published in September 2014 to uniquely identify each OTC transaction––and in doing so, produce clear guidance on a UTI definition, format and usage that meets the needs of UTI users globally in all jurisdictions and is based on relevant technical standards. The purpose of the Report is to seek comments from interested parties to ensure that any UTI guidance that is implemented in the future meets relevant authorities’ requirements for the UTI, thus enabling consistent global aggregation of OTC derivatives transaction data.

Feedback with respect to the questions raised in the Report is due by September 30 (with final guidance expected in early 2016).

The Report can be found here.