Recommends eliminating buy-side reporting requirements
Washington, D.C. — MFA urged the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Financial Research (OFR) to align its rulemaking with President Donald Trump’s Executive Order pausing new regulations in a letter submitted today. MFA asked for an extension of the final Repo Reporting Rule compliance date. MFA also encouraged OFR to review and reevaluate the rule to eliminate reporting requirements for financial end-users, including buy-side firms, or ease the burden of reporting.
“Delaying implementation of the Repo Reporting Rule aligns with the Trump Administration’s policy priorities and gives OFR time to reevaluate its scope,” said Bryan Corbett, MFA President and CEO. “Removing buy-side firms from the reporting requirements will eliminate duplicative and costly dual-reporting without harming risk monitoring.”
The Executive Order directs federal agencies to delay the implementation of pending rules to give agencies time to review “any questions of fact, law, and policy that the rules may raise.” To align with the Executive Order, OFR should delay the compliance deadline for the Repo Reporting Rule and review and reevaluate the rule.
A one-year extension will provide regulators with the opportunity to remove buy-side firms from the reporting requirements. Unlike sell-side firms, buy-side firms are not required by other reporting regimes in the U.S. to report transactions in swaps or securities. To avoid unnecessary costs and inefficiencies in reporting, buy-side firms should similarly not be required to report their repo transactions, particularly since they typically enter into repo transactions with broker-dealers and banks or their affiliates.
Read the letter here.
