More than three-quarters of financial institutions have
yet to allocate any budget to implement the changes required by the
European Union's impending Markets in Financial Instruments
Directive (MiFID).
However, most understand the impact of the legislation on their
business.
The findings, based on research by US trading software house
Gissing, come ahead of the expected release of MiFID's final
wording by Christmas.
The MiFID IT Joint Working Group has advised IT directors to
urgently confront the challenges of the legislation, given the
likely complexity of the implementation and the tight timescale for
making any changes.
Last week industry regulator the Financial Services Authority
issued a warning to financial services firms to start making
preparations for MiFID.
The directive is slated to come into force on 1 November 2007. A
consultation paper is also due out from the regulator in March
2006.
