(1)

In accordance with Article 8b of Regulation (EC) No 1060/2009, investors should receive sufficient information on the quality and performance of their underlying assets with a view to enabling them to perform an informed assessment of the creditworthiness of structured finance instruments. This would also reduce investors’ dependence on credit ratings and should facilitate the issuance of unsolicited credit ratings.

(2)

This Regulation should apply to all financial instruments or other assets resulting from a securitisation transaction or scheme referred to in Article 4(1)(61) of Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council (2) on condition that the issuer, originator or sponsor, is established, and for that purpose has its statutory seat, in the Union. Therefore, this Regulation should only cover financial instruments or other assets resulting from any transaction or scheme whereby the credit risk associated with an exposure or pool of exposures is tranched and has the characteristics referred to in that Article. Therefore, in line with that Regulation, an exposure that creates a direct payment obligation for a transaction or scheme used to finance or operate physical assets should not be considered an exposure to a securitisation, even if the transaction or scheme has payment obligations of different seniority.

(3)

The scope of this Regulation should not be limited to the issuance of structured finance instruments that qualify as securities, but also should include other financial instruments and assets resulting from a securitisation transaction or scheme, such as money-market instruments, including asset-backed commercial paper programmes. In addition, this Regulation should apply to structured finance instruments with and without credit ratings assigned by a credit rating agency registered in the Union. Private and bilateral transactions should also be within the scope of this Regulation, as well as transactions that are not offered to the public or admitted to trading on a regulated market.

(4)

This Regulation contains standardised disclosure templates for a number of asset class categories. Without prejudice to the scope of this Regulation and until reporting obligations have been developed by ESMA and adopted by the Commission, those standardised disclosure templates and all reporting obligations under this Regulation should apply only to structured finance instruments that are backed by underlying assets which are included in the list of underlying asset class categories specified in this Regulation and which in addition are not of a private or bilateral nature.

(5)

When complying with this Regulation, issuers, originators and sponsors should comply with national and Union legislation governing the protection of confidentiality of information sources or the processing of personal data in order to avoid potential breaches of such legislation.

(6)

The issuer, originator and sponsor may designate an entity responsible for reporting the information to the website to be set up by ESMA in accordance with Article 8b(4) of Regulation (EC) No 1060/2009 (the SFIs website). Outsourcing the reporting obligation to another entity, for example a servicer, should also be possible. This should be without prejudice to the responsibility of the issuer, originator and sponsor under this Regulation.

(7)

A number of technical reporting instructions concerning, among others, the transmission or the format of the files to be submitted by issuers, originators and sponsors should be communicated by ESMA on its website. ESMA should communicate those technical reporting instructions in due course before the date of application of the reporting obligations laid down in this Regulation, in order to enable issuers, originators, sponsors and other parties involved to be given enough time to develop adequate systems and procedures following the technical instructions provided by ESMA.

(8)

The information to be provided pursuant to this Regulation should be compiled in a standard format to allow for automatic processing of the data on the SFIs website. The information should also be published in a format that is easily accessible for any user of the SFIs website. ESMA should ensure that sectoral competent authorities have access to the SFIs website so as to carry out the tasks assigned to them under Regulation (EC) No 1060/2009.

(9)

This Regulation is based on the draft regulatory technical standards submitted by ESMA to the Commission in accordance with Article 10 of Regulation (EU) No 1095/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council (3).

(10)

ESMA has conducted an open public consultation on the draft regulatory technical standards on which this Regulation is based, analysed the potential related costs and benefits and requested the opinion of the Securities and Markets Stakeholder Group established in accordance with Article 37 of Regulation (EU) No 1095/2010.

(11)

A reasonable time is necessary in order to allow the issuers, the originators and the sponsors of a structured finance instrument established in the Union to adapt and take the necessary steps to comply with this Regulation and to allow ESMA to develop the SFIs website on which disclosure of the information required by this Regulation should take place. Therefore, this Regulation should apply from 1 January 2017. However, ESMA should communicate necessary technical reporting instructions in a timely manner before the date of application of this Regulation. This is necessary in order to enable the issuers, the originators and the sponsors of a structured finance instrument established in the Union to be given enough time to develop adequate systems and procedures following those technical instructions with a view to ensuring complete and correct reporting and to take into account further developments in the financial markets in the Union,