Frequently asked questions
About transaction reporting
What is a transaction report?
A record of one trade, sent to the FCA by the end of the next working day, so that it can watch for market abuse. Lesson 1 explains who has to report and what.
Does my firm have to report?
If your firm is an investment firm that executes trades in reportable instruments (shares, bonds and funds on a trading venue, and derivatives of them, including CFDs and spread bets), almost certainly. If you only pass orders to another firm under a formal transmission arrangement, that firm may report for you. Lesson 1 has the detail.
What changes in April 2028?
The FCA's new rules (PS26/15) take effect on 3 April 2028. Reports get shorter (52 fields instead of 65), the scope narrows to instruments on UK venues, and FX derivatives drop out. Our template is already shaped like the 2028 report, so you will not need to change how you send us your trades.
What is an LEI and why does it matter?
A Legal Entity Identifier: a 20-character code for a company. Your firm needs a current one to report, and your clients that are companies need one too. LEIs must be renewed every year with your LEI issuer.
My client is a person. What do I need?
Their national identifier (for UK nationals, the National Insurance number), their full first names and surname, and their date of birth. Lesson 3 explains.
What do all the columns mean?
The template guide explains every column in plain English, where to find the information, and what to watch for.
About the service
What does the service do?
You send us your trades in our template or on a form. We check each report against the FCA's rules and common mistakes, send it to DTCC (an Approved Reporting Mechanism), and show you DTCC's and the FCA's answers.
What are the steps from sign-up to live reporting?
- Sign up for an account, giving your firm's LEI and the address for its invoices.
- Test on the platform in practice mode, by uploading files or entering single reports. Nothing reaches DTCC or the FCA.
- When you are ready, press Test with DTCC on your Account page. We add your LEI to DTCC's test environment and email you when it is ready.
- Test again until every error and warning has been dealt with. These reports reach DTCC's test system but do not count as reports to the FCA.
- Subscribe from your Account page, confirming that your firm has reviewed its test results and decided it is ready. We add your LEI to DTCC's live environment, usually within a few working days.
- Receive your VAT invoice, marked as paid, at the email addresses of your users and made out to your invoice address.
- Start live reporting when we email to say you are live. Keep your current reporting arrangements running until then.
Who runs it?
Basic Reporting is a service of Regulatory Advice Limited, run by Mark Kelly with a fellow director and co-owner. Reports currently go to the FCA through DTCC's UK MiFIR Approved Reporting Mechanism. We may also use other Approved Reporting Mechanisms, to keep the service running or to keep its cost down, and we will tell you before changing the one that normally handles your reports.
What is Regulatory Advice Limited's regulatory status?
We are not regulated by the FCA. We send reports through DTCC's Approved Reporting Mechanism, which is regulated, and we act on the instructions of the regulated firms we report for. Your firm stays responsible for its reporting. The FCA expects firms to reconcile their reporting end to end, which gives them their own assurance that the whole operation works: see "Can we see our reports at DTCC?" below.
What does it cost?
£1,000 a year plus VAT, which covers up to 1,000 messages. A message is each new report and each cancellation. Practice is free.
Do we get a VAT invoice?
Yes. Each time we charge you we email a VAT invoice, marked as paid, to your users. Your invoices, statements and activity summaries are also kept on the Documents page once you have signed in.
Who is it for?
Firms sending fewer than 1,000 reports a year. The FCA's consultation CP25/32 records that about a third of firms subject to transaction reporting are in that position, and that a small firm's cost per report may be up to 15 times a large firm's. Basic Reporting is built for them.
What if we go over 1,000 messages?
Don't worry. Each extra message is 2p plus VAT, charged monthly, so a busy year of 1,500 messages costs £1,010 plus VAT. We never stop sending your reports because you went over.
We send more than 1,000 reports a year. Can you help?
Yes. The service is built with small firms in mind, but the price works the same way at any volume: £1,000 a year including the first 1,000 messages, then 2p a message, plus VAT. If you expect to send more than 50,000 messages a year, tell us before you start: above that we agree terms with you, as the terms say, and we never stop sending your reports while we do.
What is practice mode?
Before you go live, every report you send is checked and answered here as DTCC would answer, but nothing reaches the FCA. Use it to get your files right. Keep reporting through your current arrangements until you are live.
When do our files go to DTCC's test system?
When you choose. Stay in practice as long as you like. Once your files come through clean, choose Test with DTCC on your Account page and we set up your LEI, then email you when it is ready. Your files, including any client details in them, then reach DTCC's test system, but they do not count as reports to the FCA. You can go back to practice from the same page at any time.
How do I go live?
Subscribe on the Account page, confirming that your firm has reviewed its test results and decided it is ready. We then ask DTCC to set up your LEI for live reporting, which usually takes a few working days, and email you when you are live.
How quickly are reports sent?
Within 15 minutes of a successful upload, and the answers come back as soon as DTCC and the FCA give them.
What is a warning, and can I send a report anyway?
A warning means the report would probably be accepted but something looks wrong. You can fix it and resend, or send it as it is with a short reason. Who sent it, when and why are recorded.
How do I correct a report?
Send the cancellation first, then the corrected report with the same reference, best as two separate files. We send the corrected report only once the cancellation is accepted. Lesson 6 explains.
We found errors in reports from before we joined. Can you help?
Corrections to a handful of reports sent by another provider can go through us as a cancellation followed by a new report. For anything larger, see Professional help below.
Who submitted our reports, and through which ARM?
Each report's page shows its route: the submitting firm and its LEI, the Approved Reporting Mechanism, the file it went in and when it was sent. Reports has a download of all your reports with their routes. You will need this if you ever have to tell the FCA about reporting errors.
Can we see our reports at DTCC?
Not unless your firm has its own DTCC account for this service, because DTCC gives access only to firms onboarded directly with it. Your record is here instead. Each report's page shows what was sent, when and by whom, and DTCC's and the FCA's answers, and Reports has a download of every report's status and route. We keep this record for five years, the same period your firm must keep its own transaction records for.
You can and should also ask the FCA for samples of your reports periodically, through its Market Data Processor (MDP) portal. The FCA expects every reporting firm to do this, so that it can reconcile its reported trades end to end against its own records.
Do we have to tell the FCA about errors?
Whether, when and how to tell the FCA about reporting errors is a matter for your firm's compliance officer. We can give you the records you need either way, and our professional services team can support your compliance officer through it.
Resilience
What if something happens to you?
The service runs by itself, with encrypted backups at a second UK provider and a route for sending by hand if our server fails. Resilience and continuity sets out what we have in place and what your firm should keep in place.
Professional help
Still unsure what you need to report, or how you are reporting now?
Talk to our professional services team at support@regulatoryadvice.co.uk, or see backreporting.com for back-reporting and remediation. It is common for firms to find, when they first look closely, that some trades were never reported or were reported wrongly. The team can:
- work out what your firm should be reporting;
- check your past reports against your own records;
- plan and run a back-reporting or remediation project;
- support your compliance officer in any dealings with the FCA.
This is separate from the reporting service and charged at professional rates. We agree the scope and cost with you before any work starts.
Where is our data kept?
Report data is held on servers in the United Kingdom, with encrypted backups at a second UK provider. Only your firm's users and our operators can see it.
What if your service is down?
Our monitoring checks the service every five minutes and alerts us by email. If a problem could make reports late, we tell you so you can use another route.
How do we leave?
Cancel your subscription from the Account page, and it ends at the end of the subscription year. We will give you a copy of your records on request.
Who do we contact?
Use the support address shown on your Account page.
Another question? Ask your own AI assistant: tell it to read basicreporting.com/llms-full.txt.