Almost 30 percent of those asked said they are only “fairly confident or not confident at all” in keeping up with the second Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II) changes, and more than half were not ready, or not reporting correctly when MiFID II first went live in January, according to a survey conducted by Cappitech.
The survey, entitled ‘MiFID II and best execution: headache or opportunity’, asked approximately 100 capital markets firms to assess the extent to which they had been affected by the new Directive.
Commenting on the industry’s lack of confidence, Cappitech said: “Keeping abreast of changes in regulation takes skill, time and resources. Not everyone feels confident to take on this task.”
To help solve this, 50 percent of respondents said they plan to employ a dedicated member of staff to manage their regulatory reporting.
The survey also found that 65 percent of respondents said they had no systematic method of monitoring their trades according to best execution criteria.
A further 45 percent of respondents said transaction reporting was the most challenging element of the MiFID II ruling, while 29 percent said they found best execution reporting and monitoring accounts a challenge.
The majority of respondents (46 percent) were based in the UK, followed by more than 20 percent across other locations in the EU.
Cappitech said: “Respondents were from a wide variety of financial services firms in terms of their business complexity, their focus and their size, with an array of trade volumes.”
