Global: ESMA Rolls Out New Data and Digital Strategy Roadmap

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the European Union’s financial markets regulator, has unveiled a refreshed Digital Strategy alongside an updated Data Strategy, reinforcing its push toward technology-driven supervision and smarter regulatory reporting.

The twin strategies underline ESMA’s commitment to innovation, efficiency, and simplification across Europe’s financial regulatory landscape. Together, they aim to reduce unnecessary complexity while improving how data and digital tools support supervision, transparency, and market resilience.

According to ESMA, the Digital Strategy is designed to advance the authority’s ongoing digital transformation, while the updated Data Strategy focuses on simplifying, integrating, and streamlining data management and technology systems across the European System of Financial Supervision (ESFS).

Verena Ross, Chair of ESMA, said the strategies reflect a clear regulatory priority.
“ESMA is committed to smarter regulation and supervision, and this drives our dual focus on digitalisation and simplification,” she said. “These strategies support a digitally mature, resilient, and agile authority that understands the central role data plays for our supervisory community.”

Ross added that by accelerating digital transformation across the ESFS, ESMA is strengthening a more efficient, transparent, and resilient financial ecosystem for the European Union.

Digital Strategy 2026–2028: Key Focus Areas

The newly adopted Digital Strategy 2026–2028 sets out a structured roadmap to enhance innovation, efficiency, and operational resilience. Its core objectives include:

• Building stronger EU-wide digital synergies

• Enhancing digital capabilities across ESMA and the ESFS

• Improving operational efficiency through technology

• Establishing a secure, scalable, and future-ready digital ecosystem

Updated Data Strategy 2023–2028

ESMA has also revised its Data Strategy 2023–2028 to reflect evolving technologies, regulatory burden reduction goals, and new opportunities for efficiency. While its overarching objectives remain unchanged, the updated strategy introduces several new priority actions, including:

• Flagship initiatives to streamline supervisory reporting, particularly for transaction data and investment funds

• Expanding the ESMA Data Platform to support both national and EU-level authorities

• Advancing the next phases of the MiCA joint supervisory tool for crypto-asset market monitoring

• Completing the development of the European Single Access Point (ESAP)

These initiatives align closely with ESMA’s broader simplification and regulatory burden reduction programme launched in the previous year.

By aligning its digital and data strategies, ESMA aims to ensure that innovation translates into measurable benefits for regulators, market participants, and investors. The authority believes this integrated approach will unlock greater synergies and accelerate digital transformation across Europe’s financial supervisory framework.

Looking ahead, ESMA confirmed that implementation will be guided by the roadmaps under both strategies, with plans to converge the Digital and Data strategies into a single unified framework by 2029.