August 29th 2018
MIFID II - HOW WILL IT AFFECT MY BUSINESS?
WHAT IS MIFID II?
Mifid II is The Markets in Financial Instruments Directive which is the European Union legislation that helps regulate firms who provide a service to clients linked to Shares, Bonds and Units in Collective Investment Schemes. This includes the venues in which these financial instruments are traded.
The new regulation that came along also brings a large majority of non-equity investment products into a regime that is of more robust proportions.
HOW WILL MIFID II AFFECT BUSINESS?
If your business operates in the investment and financial sector, this new regulation revisited in January 2018 is almost certainly going to affect the way you work. MiFID II is fundamentally aimed at expanding transparency requirements for the industry.
Changes range from how the directive is now covering your products, how you can deal with other businesses and the way your communication will be handled daily. Due to the reform that took place earlier this year, it is of the understanding that all financial firms are legally bound to record telephone calls. This helps businesses and consumers alike stay safer as any verbal agreements made over the phone that may be disputed can have some clarification through listening back through to the conversation.
It is also in motion to move a big part of Over the Counter trading on to platforms that can better regulated to bring it in line with how the rest of the market is.
Overall, MiFID II primarily is aiming to introduce fairer markets that will be more efficient and considerably safer. It is aiming to succeed in doing this by using a multitude of tests to determine if a non-financial firm’s activities in investments are great enough that it should be subjected to the MiFID II regulations.
This meaning that if such businesses are involving themselves in investments in any way, even if it’s not the main priority for the business, they will need to make sure that they take the time out to understand whether the legislation that has now been updated affects them or is going to affect them in any way, also looking at what changes they are going to need to do to comply if this is the case.
For more information on MiFID II please refer to:
https://www.esma.europa.eu/policy-rules/mifid-ii-and-mifir