ESMA_QA_2104

Status: ✅ Answer Published

Link to ESMA Q&A tool: https://www.esma.europa.eu/publications-data/questions-answers/2104


Regulatory Context

Regulation : MIF2

Level 1 Regulation: Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II) Directive 2014/65/EU- Secondary Markets

Level 2 Regulation: Regulation 2017/578 - RTS on market making agreements and market making schemes (RTS 8)

Level 3 Regulation: No information available

Topic: Direct Electronic Access and algorithmic trading

Subject Matter: Market making in securitised derivatives


Question

Submission Date: 12 February 2024

Are there technical circumstances related to securitised derivatives under which it can be considered that a market maker posting one-way quotes is considered to meet the obligations on market making agreements set out in Article 2 of RTS 8?


ESMA Answer

Answer Date: 08-01-2024

Article 2 of RTS 8 establishes a series of obligations for market makers including to post “simultaneous two-way quotes” in at least one financial instrument for at least 50% of daily trading hours during which continuous trading takes place.  ESMA notes that for securitised derivatives there are instances where it is not technically possible for the market makers to offer both bid and offer quotes. This is the case where all the issued securities have been sold and no more securities can be issued under the prospectus, thus the market maker’s inventory is sold out. In such cases, the market maker is in the position to only post bid quotes for a securitised derivative. Only under this limited circumstance, the requirement to post “simultaneous two-way quotes” under Article 2 of RTS 8 is considered to be met.  This is without prejudice to the exceptional circumstances referred to in Article 3 of RTS 8, under which market makers could provide one-way quotes.


This document was automatically extracted from the ESMA EMIR Q&A database.