ESMA - European Securities and Markets Authority

02/20/2026 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 02/20/2026 07:06

ESMA publishes a supervisory briefing on the AAR representativeness obligation

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU's financial markets regulator and supervisor, has published a supervisory briefing on the representativeness obligation linked to the active account requirement (AAR).

The briefing sets out ESMA's supervisory expectations for how counterparties should comply with and report on the AAR representativeness obligation. It provides guidance and promotes supervisory convergence for the supervision of counterparties subject to the AAR, an issue which has attracted particular scrutiny.
The document explains how counterparties should identify the most relevant subcategories for the purpose of the AAR representativeness obligation, how they should report trades, and includes an example of compliance with reporting of the representativeness obligation.

ARR representativeness obligation

The representativeness obligation requires relevant counterparties to clear a number of trades in their active accounts open at EU CCPs. These trades must be on the most relevant subcategories of derivatives and reflect the activity those counterparties currently clear at Tier 2 CCPs.

Next steps

Counterparties subject to the AAR representativeness obligation are expected to follow the guidance included in this supervisory briefing to comply with their regulatory obligations.

Further information:

Tayfun Yilmaz

Communications Officer
[email protected]

ESMA - European Securities and Markets Authority published this content on February 20, 2026, and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed via Public Technologies (PUBT), unedited and unaltered, on February 20, 2026 at 13:06 UTC. If you believe the information included in the content is inaccurate or outdated and requires editing or removal, please contact us at [email protected]