New regulatory powers Financial market infrastructure: general rules and requirements Regulation of FMI by the Financial Conduct Authority Data Reporting Service Providers
Data Reporting Services Providers (DRSPs) are a type of FMI. They are commercial entities that allow investment firms to fulfil their regulatory reporting obligations. There are three types of DRSPs:
Approved publication arrangements (APAs): APAs publish trade reports on behalf of investment firms, which are required to publish information, such as price and size of executed trades they perform, so that market participants can use such information to make informed investment decisions. They are required to publish this information as near to "real time" as possible. If a trade occurs on a trading venue, then the information is automatically made public. If a trade happens off-exchange, then an investment firm must disclose the trading information themselves or use an APA to do so.
Approved Reporting Mechanisms (ARMs): ARMs report details about transactions to the FCA on behalf of investment firms, for market surveillance purposes. This information is not made public.
Consolidated tape providers (CTPs): CTPs collate trading data for financial instruments from a variety of sources, including APAs and trading venues, and consolidate them into a continuous electronic live data stream. This data stream provides price and volume information for each financial instrument. This data can help market participants to make informed investment decisions.
	Many of the rules that govern DRSPs are set out in the Data Reporting Services Regulations 2017 (DRSRs), which were introduced to transpose parts of the second Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II), an EU Directive, into UK law. The DRSRs include rules that apply directly to the DRSPs themselves, including those relating to authorisation and operating requirements (for example how DRSPs collect and disseminate data, and the need for effective governance procedures). The DRSRs also establish the FCA’s supervision and enforcement powers in relation to DRSPs. As part of the onshoring process, the DRSRs were amended to address deficiencies arising as a result of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU and the end of the transition period.
	DRSPs currently sit outside of the core FSMA 2000 authorisation regime and the FCA does not have any rule-making powers over them, except for some limited powers in respect of technical standards, which are not sufficient to replace the rules currently in retained EU law.
	The Act therefore gives the FCA a general rule-making power in relation to DRSPs to enable the FCA to replace the provisions in retained EU law relating to the regulation of DRSPs, and to ensure that the FCA has an effective way of upholding and enhancing standards in the future. This will allow the FCA to act as the market evolves, including through the trading of new types of asset classes and trading that uses new forms of technology.
	The rule-making power will also help ensure that the FCA has the necessary tools to facilitate the development of a consolidated tape.