Transparency - data (pre- and/or post-trade data) available free of charge 15 minutes after publication

In order to ensure that all potential users can access the information made available free of charge 15 minutes after publication, trading venues and APAs should make clear instructions to the public on their website on how and where to access the data. The post-trade data should be available to anybody free of charge and in a format which can be understood by the average reader. ESMA considers that publishing information on a website that is not accessible to everybody imposes restrictions on access to the data and does not meet the requirement for making information available free of charge. Similarly, the publication of data through third parties that do not charge specific fees for the relevant data but raise regular, for instance monthly or yearly, fees for subscribing to their services, does not meet the requirement to make information available free of charge. Furthermore, ESMA is of the view that allowing access to the data via a human interface only from ex ante registered IP addresses does not meet the requirement to make information available to the public free of charge. However, such a restriction is acceptable for data provided in a machine readable way. Publishing information in a format that prevents users to read, use and copy the information Trading venues and APAs should publish information in an electronic format that can be directly and automatically read by a computer, and that can be accessed, read, used and copied by any potential user through computer software that is free of charge and publicly available.  ESMA does not consider that publishing data as an image (i.e. in such a way that the user cannot copy the data in a format that can be read by a computer) or requiring the purchase of a specific software for downloading, processing or reading the information meets the requirement of making data available free of charge. Requiring market participants to submit search queries in order to access data The data made available free of charge should be published in a similar format as real-time data published on a reasonable commercial basis. ESMA does not consider that offering only publication arrangements whereby market participants are required to submit search queries in order to access limited portions of the data (e.g. ISIN-by-ISIN searches, limited time periods) meet the requirement of making data available free of charge, but such search queries could exist in addition. Deleting data shortly after publication The data made available free of charge should replicate the information published on a reasonable commercial basis but with a 15 minutes delay. ESMA is of the view that the information should be available for any party to initiate a retrieval of the data for a period of at least 24 hours from the publication. It is not reasonable to have the data available for a period that is not long enough for it to be downloaded reliably either on an ad-hoc or in a repeatable manner No publication of post-trade data on transactions benefitting from a deferral ESMA recalls that the obligation to make available post-trade data free of charge 15 minutes after publication applies also to transactions benefitting from a deferral. ESMA therefore expects that information on those transactions is made available on the same conditions as information on transactions not subject to deferred publication.