Beat the deadline (financial services companies' compliance with the Markets and Financial Instruments Directive (Mifid))
Beat the deadline (financial services companies’ compliance with the Markets and Financial Instruments Directive (Mifid))
Williams L. Computing, 9 November 2006, Start page: 27, No of pages: 3
Purpose – to examine the measures that financial services companies in the European Union (EU) are expected to introduce in order to comply with the forthcoming Markets and Financial Instruments Directive (Mifid). Design/methodology/approach – the extent to which Mifid is expected to form yet another layer of financial services compliance legislation, on top of such regulations as Sarbanes-Oxley Act and Basel 2, is discussed from the viewpoint of the degree to which this is yet one more burden for the companies involved to shoulder. Reports that, while Mifid is due to be come into force in 2007, with the aim of creating a single, cross-European financial services market and lowering the cost for banks doing business in other countries, only 2 percent of financial institutions are prepared for the Mifid compliance deadline. Findings – industry experts believe that companies with many product lines could discover that the investment required to enable them to become Mifid-compliant will not be justified by the expected return, while other companies will look upon Mifid as an opportunity to make a huge investment and may even buy a small exchange. Concludes that small companies will do just enough to avoid prosecution. Originality/value – provides a useful review of the current state of the EU financial services industry on the threshold of the implementation of the Mifid legislation.
Keywords: Communications technology, Document management, European Union, Financial reporting, Financial services, Governance
