German government asks EU to ease MiFID II rules

By Margaryta Kirakosian August 28, 2019, CityWire Selector Germany’s Ministry of Finance has asked Brussels to soften MiFID II guidelines, according to a statement from the governmental body. The ministry consulted investment firms, investors and other market participants one...

MiFID redux? ESMA insists on LEIs for repo collateral

By Samuel Wilkes August 27, 2019, Risk European regulators are turning to an old trick to boost the adoption of legal entity identifiers (LEIs) – a ‘barcode for finance’, designed to improve trade reporting. Less than two years after...

MiFID costs and charges: why asset managers want more rules

By Lizzie Meager August 20, 2019, Practice Insight from IFLR As asset managers continue to grapple with MiFID II’s myriad requirements, some are calling for clarification on a particularly unclear area: the disclosure of costs and charges. Buy-side sources...

Regulation drives asset management consolidation

By Jimmie Franklin August 21, 2019, International Financial Law Review A tough regulatory environment has left asset management struggling to comply, and keep costs down. This is leading to consolidation in the industry, with regulations in the E.U. such...

Plato’s Planned Platform Could Serve as Precursor to European Consolidated Tape

By Josephine Gallagher August 21, 2019, Waters Technology When European regulators included measures for a consolidated tape (CT) in their 2018 review of the trading rulebook, it was largely met with applause. The hope was that it would bring...

Banks cut middle managers in European research overhaul

By Paul Clarke August 21, 2019, Financial News London’s investment banks are putting their trust in old heads and young shoulders in the battle to provide fund managers with stock-market research worth paying for. European Union trading rules forcing...

More than 300 European firms have lost all sell-side coverage since MiFID II

By Louise Bowman August 21, 2019, Euromoney In late August, the U.K.’s Cass Business School published a research paper looking at the effects of MiFID II on sell-side analysts, buy-side analysts and firms themselves. Unsurprisingly, the authors – Bingxu...

MiFID II Equities: Dark Pools Hit High During Summer Slowdown

By Tim Cave, TABB Group Originally published on the TABB FORUM The summer slowdown hit Europe’s equity markets in July, but there were some notable exceptions. TABB Group’s Tim Cave looks at MiFID II’s ongoing impact on equities liquidity...

City’s brain drain, price wars, and disastrous deals: MiFID II is not working out as planned

By Vinjeru Mkandawire August 18, 2019, The Telegraph When MiFID II was rolled out in the aftermath of the financial crisis, transparency sat at the heart of Europe’s biggest market reform in over a decade. Nearly two years on,...

Last orders: Rise of closing auctions stirs worries in European stock markets

By Josephine Mason August 19, 2019, Reuters The final five minutes of trading have become the busiest time of day for stock market traders in Europe. Aside from an initial burst of activity after the open in the...

Banking and investment bodies begin talks to cut stock market trading hours

By Samuel Agini August 19, 2019, Financial News Banks and asset managers are working on revolutionary proposals to cut stock market trading hours across Europe, Financial News has learnt. Proponents say the plans can help to end the testosterone-fuelled...

Dark trading volumes reach highest level under MiFID II

By Hayley McDowell August 15, 2019, The Trade European equity trading activity fell in July this year while dark trading volumes surged to the highest level since MiFID II was introduced, according to analysis by TABB Group. The research...

Brexit row delays financial products transparency review

By Peter Teffer August 9, 2019, E.U. Observer The uncertainty caused by Brexit has led to disagreement between the European Commission and its Paris-based financial regulatory body, about the usefulness of carrying out a review of financial products transparency....

E.U. regulator to build system to catch bond errors worth billions

By Bérengère Sim and Samuel Agini August 12, 2019, Financial News A European Union regulator is devising a system to catch botched transaction reports that have overstated bond-trading activity by hundreds of billions of euros, Financial News can reveal....

Asset managers farm out trading as costs and complexity climb

By Thyagaraju Adinarayan and Helen Reid August 5, 2019, Reuters It’s 10 o’clock at night, and Benjamin Arnold’s day is just beginning. The former Goldman Sachs trader is gearing up to trade equities in Asia from his small office...

SEC says may give firms more time to comply with Europe’s research rules

By Tomo Uetake August 7, 2019, Reuters The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) could extend a 30-month grace period granted to Wall Street firms to comply with European Union investment rules to unbundle research and other services, commissioner...

How Does MiFID II and Fintech Work?

By Chris Skinner Originally published at Chris Skinner’s blog, The Finanser Over a decade ago, I curated a book about MiFID – the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive. I don’t blog about this much these days, as my audience...

Market data debate must consider cost of change – expert

By Louisa Chender August 2, 2019, Global Investor Group The cost of implementing any additional regulatory changes must remain a key consideration amid the ongoing debate about market data fees, according to an expert. The E.U. financial markets...

U.S. buy-side commission pool plummets as MiFID II and rise of passive investing bites

By Hayley McDowell August 2, 2019, The Trade The rise of passive investing and research unbundling under MiFID II in Europe has hit institutional equities in the U.S., with research showing that buy-side firms have significantly reduced their commission...

MiFID II research unbundling: “It has changed everything and nothing”

By Hugo Bromley July 31, 2019, Practice Insight from IFLR MiFID II has not yet reduced conflicts of interest in the sale of research, according to several sources speaking to Practice Insight. “It has changed everything and nothing,” a...

Robots Are Solving Banks’ Very Expensive Research Problem

By Charlotte Ryan August 6, 2019, Bloomberg As lawmakers in Brasilia debated a controversial pension overhaul for months, a robot more than 5,000 miles away in London kept a close eye on all 513 of them. The algorithm, designed...

Paul Myners: regulators have failed to act on liquidity risk

By Owen Walker August 3, 2019, Financial Times Paul Myners’ living room befits a man who, by his admission, has “10 or 11 jobs”. His long dining table is piled high with reports and briefings from multiple chairmanships and...

Europe’s MiFID rules on ETFs help to pump up the volume

By Philip Stafford July 29, 2019, Financial Times The European market for exchange traded funds is still adjusting to a transformative event that could come to be seen as the making of it: the arrival last year of the...

Equity Analysts Stopped Covering Hundreds of European Companies After MiFID II. Here’s What Else Happened.

By Amy Whyte July 23, 2019, Institutional Investor In 2018, it suddenly became more expensive to outsource European equity research to banks. Asset managers have responded by bringing more research in-house, according to a recent academic study by researchers...

SEC’s Clayton Seeking Permanent Fix for Wall Street’s MiFID Pain

By Benjamin Bain July 25, 2019, Bloomberg Law The Securities and Exchange Commission, seeking a long-term response to European Union rules that force brokerages to bill separately for trading and research services, hasn’t decided whether to extend a temporary...

Industry bemoans ‘excessive’ rules

By Alice Tchernookova July 25, 2019, Practice Insight from IFLR Now that MiFID II has bedded down and the industry looks towards the next round of new regulations, market participants are bemoaning the excessive layers of rules that often...

MiFID II accelerates automation of investor services

By Thomas Helm July 24, 2019, Practice Insight from IFLR This evolution is expected to affect both primary and secondary markets, equities and bonds; particularly equities. “We’ll start to see a shift towards a new level of intimacy with...

U.K. watchdog extends financial sector’s no-deal Brexit reprieve

By Caroline Binham July 25, 2019, Financial Times The U.K.’s markets regulator has extended by six months a grace period intended to allow the financial sector to comply with rules that would come into force in the event of...

SEC looks to extend MiFID exemption for U.S. brokers’ research

By Richard Henderson July 23, 2019, Financial Times The Securities and Exchange Commission is looking to extend an exemption that allows U.S. brokers to sell research to European fund managers under the E.U.’s MiFID II regime that came...

MiFID II pre-trade waivers should be “case-by-case” – expert

By James Thursfield July 18, 2019, Global Investor Group Regulators could achieve greater transparency in derivatives markets under MiFID II with a simplified legislative text that allows room for more flexibility in their approach to pre-trade waivers, according to...