The UK’s financial conduct authority (FCA) has indicated it will accept a soft roll out of the second Markets in Financial Instruments Directive in January.
Speaking at the AFME European Compliance and Legal Conference, Mark Steward, executive director of enforcement and market oversight, told delegates: “We [the FCA] have no intention of taking enforcement action against firms for not meeting all requirements straight away where there is evidence they have taken sufficient steps to meet the new obligations by the start-date, 3 January 2018.”
Although undoubtedly reassuring to in-scope firms, the admission was prefaced by a warning , stating: “We have issued statements reminding firms not authorised for MIFID II activities or firms that need variations of permission that they needed to submit completed applications for authorisation or variations of permission by 3 July 2017 to be guaranteed their applications will be determined in time.”
“Many firms have managed to meet this deadline, a some have not. Those firms really need to take action now.”
Steward added that he expects MiFID II to significantly widen the FCA’s net for data capture from 20 million to 30-35 million transactions per day, as well as more than 50 million orders per day or a total of over 1 trillion data points per year.
The looming pressures of Brexit mean that the FCA is unlikely to increase its investigative work against potential financial misconduct as the extra resources that would require are not feasible.
