Fastmarkets successfully completes IOSCO assurance review for metals and agricultural prices

London, August 16, 2022 – Fastmarkets, the industry-leading cross-commodity price reporting agency (PRA), has successfully completed another external assurance review of its key agricultural and metals price assessments.

Professional services company BDO carried out the independent assurance review and found that, as of June 30, 2022, Fastmarkets’ responses were in line with the Principles for Oil PRAs set out by the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) in 2012. The IOSCO principles create an overarching framework for benchmarks, articulating guidance and principles ensuring transparency and openness. The assurance review process examines a firm’s governance and controls framework, policies and methodologies in scope to verify their adherence to the PRA Principles.  

As stated by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), this external assurance review is sufficient to demonstrate compliance with the audit requirements of the EU Benchmark Regulation (BMR) for commodity benchmarks (paragraph 18 of Annex II).   

The price assessments reviewed include some administered by Fastmarkets Benchmark Administration Oy (FBA Oy), which was incorporated in Finland in December 2020 to administer all benchmarks that are in scope of the BMR.

“Providing our customers with dependable prices backed by reliable methodologies is at the heart of what we do. The completion of an external assurance review of our process demonstrates our commitment to providing reliable, impartial, representative and transparent benchmarks,’’ said Fastmarkets CEO Raju Daswani.

This is the first year that Fastmarkets audited the following agricultural price assessments: soybean, distiller’s corn oil, used cooking oil and bleachable fancy tallow.

To obtain a copy of the independent assurance reports and to view Fastmarkets’ price methodology/specifications, click here.