Cyprus Parliament considers bills to connect to ESAP
The Parliament of Cyprus has begun considering legislative proposals required for the country’s participation in a pan-European centralized platform containing data on companies and financial institutions. This concerns the creation of the European Single Access Point (ESAP).
As Cyprus Mail reports, officials have prepared 12 bills to align Cypriot legislation with the EU directive on establishing ESAP.
A single open-data portal
ESAP is intended to become a public European Union portal that will facilitate access to information that is already public. Currently, data on companies and financial products are available from different sources, including issuers’ websites and national and European public registers.
The EU regulation grants the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) the authority to create and manage the portal. The stated aim of the initiative is to simplify access to data and increase companies’ visibility to investors, including small businesses in small capital markets seeking to attract investment from the EU and other countries.
More current news is available on the UA.News Telegram channel Telegram.
Information transmission in Cyprus
The ESAP system provides for two stages. First, an authorized collection body will receive information from reporting entities. Such a body may be a national competent authority, another national institution, or a register. The information will then be transmitted to ESAP for publication on the portal managed by ESMA.
The platform will feature financial and non-financial companies, capital-market-oriented companies, large enterprises, small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as companies with a parent company outside the EU. The portal will allow users to search annual financial statements and related audit reports, as well as sustainability statements and the corresponding assurance reports.
ESAP will be launched in stages. In Cyprus, the Central Bank has been designated as the body collecting information from financial institutions, while the Securities and Exchange Commission will collect it from investment firms.
