SEC proposes Structured Data for Alternative Trading Systems
Alternative Trading Systems (ATS) tend to be less regulated than official exchanges. Offering a similar service, ATS primarily provide a place to match buyers and sellers for transactions, mainly securities, with minimal rules of conduct.
ATS trading is often conducted out of the public eye, however, in recent years, regulators have stepped up efforts to make this more transparent.
As ATS for government securities have grown in complexity and size to a point where they play a critical role in the US and global economy, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has proposed a number of regulatory updates.
Amongst a number of amendments designed to address changes in market conditions, the SEC has proposed that filers either submit forms ATS-G, ATS, and ATS-R in a custom XML schema or in machine- and human-readable Inline XBRL. Introducing iXBRL for these forms would require tagging numerical details in quantitative disclosures, and block tagging narrative disclosures, and could vastly improve the transparency of ATS trading.
Comments are due within 60 days of publication.
Read the proposal here.
