On November 27th, 2019, the Polish Financial Supervision Authority authorized GPW Benchmark, to carry out an activity of administrator of capital market benchmarks pursuant to art.34 of the Regulation on indices used as benchmarks (BMR)
Following this, the European Securities and Exchange Authority (ESMA) has placed GPW Benchmark S.A. in the register of administrators at www.esma.europa.eu.
GPW Benchmark will operate as an administrator of stock exchange indices from the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE) Main Market, NewConnect and the TBSP market, including WIG20, mWIG40 and sWIG80.
The operational takeover of control over the provision of Stock Exchange Indices by the GPW Benchmark from the WSE will take place from the beginning of December 2019.
Stock Exchange Indices will be determined in accordance with the current methodology and principles adopted by GPW Benchmark as an administrator and published on the websites: www.gpwbenchmark.pl and www.gpw.pl.
Information on the value of stock exchange indices will be distributed to recipients of market data by the WSE on the same basis.
The takeover of the role of index administrator by GPW Benchmark is related to the requirement to comply with the Regulation (EU) 2016/1011 of the European Parliament and the Council issued on 8th June 2016 on indices used as benchmarks in financial instruments and financial contracts or to measure fund performance investment (BMR). Compliance with the BMR involves providing an appropriate framework for managing index calculation in line with the requirements of the Regulation.
Compliance with BMR requirements will allow the optimization of the processes related to the index management, ensuring their high quality, supervision over the calculation method as well as transparency and availability of data for the investors.
The WIBID and WIBOR reference rates method adapted to the BMR, for which GPW Benchmark is responsible, will be subject of a separate administrative procedure with the Polish Financial Supervision Authority. GPW Benchmark will file the application in this regard in the coming days.
Having obtained authorization for interest rate benchmarks, including WIBOR critical benchmark, GPW Benchmark will offer also alternative interest rate benchmarks. GPW Benchmark had started the presentation of the values of such indicators (alternative indices) as well as simulations on historical data for information purposes.