On Monday 26 April 2021, ESMA published a press release confirming that it is in the final stages of the process of assessing applications received from prospective Securitisation Repositories under the Securitisation Regulation (Regulation EU 2017/2402). Within 40 working days ESMA is obliged to finalise its assessment of the applications made by a prospective Securitisation Repository. If ESMA decides in favour of the applicant, then that entity will be registered as a Securitisation Repository five working days after ESMA decides to register such Securitisation Repository. Further, ESMA states in its press release that the obligations to file reports and information regarding securitisations with a Securitisation Repository under the Securitisation Regulation will become effective “as soon as” a Securitisation Repository is registered. A link to the ESMA press release can be found here: ESMA enters final stage in the registration of the first securitisation repositories (europa.eu)
Assuming that ESMA approves the application of at least one prospective Securitisation Repository, by no later than mid-June 2021, securitisations involving an EU originator, sponsor or issuer (the SSPE in Securitisation Regulation terms) will need to start distributing loan by loan data, investor reports and the “exceptional event” reporting under Article 7(1)(g), via a Securitisation Repository.
Originators, sponsors (and indeed, directors of issuers) that have payment dates falling in June (or who are planning to issue new securitisations around that time) would be well advised to check the ESMA website on a regular basis for further announcements regarding the registration of a Securitisation Repository. Given that there will only be five days notice between registration of the first Securitisation Repository and the obligation to report via such Securitisation Repository becoming live, market participants will not want to risk inadvertently missing the date for making their first reports to the Securitisation Repository.
Finally, it is worth noting that this marks the second major divergence between the Securitisation Regulation regimes applicable in the EU and the UK. The first was the announcement earlier this month that from 9 April 2021, the EU Securitisation Regulation was being amended in relation to NPE and STS synthetic securitisations (which amendments have not been made to the UK Securitisation Regulation regime). Now the EU will (likely) have one or more Securitisation Repositories via which the reporting mandated under Article 7 of the Securitisation Regulation can be made. The UK, as yet, has not registered a Securitisation Repository.