A post relating to this item from Finextra:
09 March, 2007
IT teams still waiting for green light on MiFID projects
UK regulators say they will take a pragmatic approach to any minor non-compliance from member firms when the EU's Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) formally comes into effect in November.
At an event this week I heard an interesting opinion from the compliance head of German bank WestLB. His view was that in the German market, no-one saw any strategic benefits arising from MiFID - only cost and hard work. In fact, he said, with Germany's
fragmented financial industry, many would be overburdened by the cost of compliance and this could lead to a wave of consolidation among smaller buy-side and sell-side firms.
One of the EC's main aims with the MiFID, besides increasing retail investor protection, is to increase the competitiveness of Europe by shaking up the execution venue business, and promoting competition to entrenched national exchanges. I wonder if it also
intended the regulatory burden to force M&A activity among regulated firms in countries that don't currently have highly concentrated financial industries, or if this would just be seen as an added bonus?