The Index Industry Association (IIA) welcomes the European Commission initiative to reduce reporting requirements by 25%, in line with the objective to boost the EU’s long-term competitiveness. The Proposal to review the Benchmark Regulation’s (BMR) scope and third- country regime is a concrete and welcomed measure to achieve this objective.

The IIA supports the BMR’s aims of promoting investor protection and the orderly functioning of financial markets, and shares the Commission’s view of the current framework’s shortcomings and unintended consequences. In particular, the prescriptive scope, capturing all benchmarks used in the European Union (EU), paired with limited access routes to the EU market for third- country administrators, risks seeing EU-based investors lose access to many of the world’s indexes, posing significant financial stability and competitiveness risks.

Read the full paper here.