ESAs consider digital data for SFDR
Last week we covered the news that the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) – the European Banking Authority (EBA), the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA), and the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) – are consulting on amendments to the Delegated Regulation of the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR).
Question 42 in the consultation asks whether and if so which SFDR disclosures should be made digitally. The answer (of course) is “Life, The Universe, And Everything” — and (less cryptically) “Yes”. In the context of the upcoming European Single Access Point (ESAP), the ESAs are considering mandating a machine-readability format for some SDFR disclosures. They point out that digital disclosures reporting in structured data could allow for more effective compliance supervision.
We would go further and point out that only with digital disclosure by funds will it be possible for investors to comb through all of this information to identify the best possible options for their circumstances and preferences. Digital disclosure of SFDR data will be useful to regulators, but it will be even more useful to end users, and should fuel a range of innovation to provide tools and services that add value to a wide range of stakeholders.
The consultation asks you to consider whether machine-readable format should be used for SFDR disclosures, and, if so, which one. {Ed: We don’t want to unduly influence you, but here’s a hint… the correct answers are (a) Yes and (b) XBRL.}
The consultation will be open until 4 July 2023, and we encourage our readers to share their opinion via the response form!
Read it here.
