Q5. Do you agree that the new TR may charge fees to the active TR participants for the maintenance and the recordkeeping of their non-outstanding derivatives? Which other aspects need to be considered? Please elaborate on the reasons for your response.

41. ESMA proposed that TRs can charge a fee to TR participants for the maintenance and the recordkeeping in the case of withdrawal of registration.

42. Seven answers were received.

43. Five respondents supported the proposal whereas two disagreed with the proposal.

44. One TR welcomed the proposal as TRs incur costs for e.g. storage, ongoing maintenance, but required more clarity on the expectation for the non-outstanding data.

45. The respondents brought forwards several ideas with regards to the fee setting, such as differentiating and keeping fee values for transfer of non-outstanding data between TRs confidential to ensure fair market competition, taking in to account the size of a TR, and setting a standard price per reports given that a TR participant may not be able to choose the new TR and may therefore not have the fairest price.

46. One banking association did not see any reason why the TR participants should bear the costs and also argued that non-outstanding derivatives data were not of interest for authorities. It asked ESMA to provide more information on the benefits of this proposal.