Instrument Reference Data

Trading venues submit the details of instruments admitted to trading or traded on their trading venue on a daily basis. SIs, including UK branches of EEA firms where the UK branch conducts SI activity, submit reference data for reportable instruments in which they are an SI and that are not admitted to trading on a trading venue.

We validate and consolidate this data and publish it on the FCA Financial Instruments Reference Data System (FCA FIRDS) the next day by 9am UTC. Firms are then able to view and download the data. FCA FIRDS also includes instrument reference data reported to ESMA by EEA trading venues and SIs. This information is sourced from ESMA FIRDS.

The daily FCA FIRDS publication includes details of instrument reference data files and instructions on how to access and download the reference data files. We are not able to provide any representation or warranty that the available data is complete, accurate or up to date. Instruments not displayed on the list may still be reportable and firms should still undertake due diligence.

Errors and omissions notifications

If a trading venue or systematic internaliser finds errors in their instrument reference data submissions or fails to submit instrument reference data, an errors and omissions notification form should be emailed to the Markets Reporting Team at: [email protected].

Processing transaction reports with instrument reference data

Transaction reports will not be processed immediately, even when they are reported in close to real time on the day of trading, known as day ‘T’ (T=today). This is because the reference data for day ‘T’ must be used to validate transactions that took place on day ‘T’ and this will not be available until the next day, T+1.

Transaction reports will be held and may be processed on T+1. When reports are received where the ISIN is not on FCA FIRDS, our Market Data Processor (MDP) system will acknowledge the report as received, but as pending. The flow for the validation is set out in the instrument validation tab of the reporting instructions.

Every day, for up to 7 calendar days, the system will look for the instrument reference data again. If the reference data becomes available, the transaction report will be processed and the validations related to the instrument will be run. The report will either be accepted or rejected.

If the instrument reference data has still not been received after 7 calendar days, the transaction report is rejected. It is possible that the financial instrument on the rejected transaction report has been over-reported, but this is not necessarily the case and the executing entity may want to check the accuracy of the instrument with the trading venue before resubmitting the transaction report.