The Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (“MiFID”) is due for implementation in the UK in November 2007. Designed to enhance competition in the European Union within Financial Services, MiFID will enable firms to improve the ‘passporting’ of their activities over national borders within the EU. Retail banks, investment banks, portfolio managers, stockbrokers and broker-dealers, futures and options firms, corporate finance firms, wholesale market dealers and providers of custody services are all likely to be affected by the directive.

Data-specific work related to MiFID falls into various categories:

• Client classification
• Appropriateness and suitability
• Business transparency/transactional reporting
• Best execution
• Client order handling
• Conflicts of Interest

For example:

• Client  data will need to be amended and it should be possible to link trade data to the different classification of the same client
• Data to support Suitability and Appropriateness test results will need to be collected and recorded
• MiFID regulations will require an increased number of mandatory data fields
• Additional transactional fields will be required by the FSA
• Trade data needs to be stores for five years and always available if requested
• Data supporting annual best execution performance testing will need to be robust and up to date

What services do we offer?

• Client data will need to be cleansed and profiled to assess the completeness of the data
• We can provide an independent review of systems that will be impacted by MiFID
• Once the MiFID affected systems are identified and prioritised, a data quality review will be undertaken to establish where immediate and subsequent remedial action is required
• Results can be represented on a scorecard or dashboard helping demonstrate how your data complies with MiFID requirements

For more information on all of our MiFID services, visit our homepage.