Approved Publication Arrangement


An Approved Publication Arrangement is an entity authorized under the MiFID II directive to publish trade reports on behalf of investment firms, fulfilling requirements outlined in Article in the European Union. These reports contribute to increased transparency in over-the-counter (OTC) markets by disseminating both pre-trade quotes and post-trade transaction data. The MiFID II directive, which came into force in January 2018, mandates the use of APAs to enhance transparency in OTC markets.
While the term APA technically refers to the organization itself, it is also commonly used to refer to the data they publish.

History

APAs, Approved Reporting Mechanisms and Consolidated Tape Providers were new categories of Data Reporting Services Providers that were introduced as part of MiFID II in Europe in 2014 that had not existed under MiFID I.
For the APA data it is distinguished into three asset classes: bonds, derivatives of all kind, and Structured Finance.

Data structure

Each APA data record contains information such as:
  1. Agreement Time and Date in the variable TRADING_DATE_AND_TIME in ISO 8601 format, e.g. 2019-08-08T03:14:15.926000+00:00
  2. Publication Time
  3. ISIN to uniquely identify the financial instrument, for instance INSTRUMENT_ID=HU0000403118 refers to a government bond of Hungary with maturity date 2027-10-27.
  4. Name of the financial instrument
  5. Price
  6. Volume
  7. Trade type

Example

A example record in JSON format looks like this: