The European Association of CCP Clearing Houses has published its response to the European Commission’s targeted consultation on integration of EU capital markets, calling for reduced regulatory fragmentation in post-trading and more integrated EU supervision of central counterparties (CCPs). While noting that the EMIR 3 supervisory system only started applying in December 2024 and is still being tested, the association reports majority member support for some form of more centralised CCP supervision, alongside warnings against regional supervisory hubs, enhanced supervisory colleges and joint supervisory teams that could add cost and slow approvals. On simplification, it highlights disproportionate complexity at Level 2 and argues that ESMA’s draft regulatory technical standards under EMIR 3 on product/service authorisations and risk model changes could make accelerated or exempted procedures ineffective by setting restrictive conditions and extensive documentation, governance and testing expectations. It also presses for removal of overlapping reporting obligations across EMIR, REMIT, the Market Abuse Regulation, MiFID and MiFIR, and for more harmonised, automated reporting approaches. On post-trade integration, it proposes incentives for migration of settlement flows to TARGET2-Securities (including ECB volume-based pricing) and flags that only 4% of settlements in T2S are cross-border, while calling for changes to address internalised settlement and perceived imbalances in Central Securities Depositories Regulation penalty rules; it also notes the ECB’s planned simplification of settlement of non-T2S issued securities in mid-2026. On legal certainty and innovation, the response supports turning the Settlement Finality Directive and the Financial Collateral Directive into Regulations to reduce divergent national implementation, and proposes expanding SFD protections to explicitly cover CCP default management rules and actions, a wider set of participants and assets beyond cash and securities, and a clearer EU approach to third-country system protections. It further calls to broaden eligible collateral under the FCD to cover all assets acceptable under EMIR (including commodities and emission allowances) and to clarify key concepts such as “possession and control”, alongside targeted clarifications to allow acceptance of tokenised and DLT-based instruments as collateral, including treating wholesale central bank digital currency as “cash” under EMIR RTS 153/2013.
European Association of CCP Clearing Houses 2025-06-10
European Association of CCP Clearing Houses urges more centralised EU CCP supervision and streamlined EMIR 3 processes in Commission capital markets consultation
The European Association of CCP Clearing Houses responded to the European Commission's consultation on EU capital markets integration, advocating for reduced regulatory fragmentation and centralized CCP supervision. It highlights concerns over ESMA's complex draft standards under EMIR 3 and calls for harmonized reporting and incentives for settlement flow migration to TARGET2-Securities. The response supports transforming the Settlement Finality Directive and Financial Collateral Directive into Regulations and expanding protections and eligible collateral under EMIR.