MiFIR for US Firms

Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), is a European regulation that requires firms to report any trade executed on an EEA regulated market to their host regulator via an Approved Reporting Mechanism (ARM). The intended purpose of this is to enable the regulators to identify and investigate any potential market abuse.

An updated version of the Directive (MiFID 2) along with its accompanying Regulation (MiFIR) will be going live in Janaury 2017 with a much larger scope and complexity than before.

Why this is important to US firms

Branches of European firms based in the US previously did not have to report, but under the new MiFIR regime they will now have a direct reporting obligation. As well as this, any US firm trading with an European counterpart, will have their company details and transactional data sent by the counterpart to the regulators under MiFIR.

Wider scope and complexity

The number of reportable products has been extended to include FX, commodities and interest rates derivatives, and will also encompass a number of North American instruments listed on MTFs. The actual reports have also increased in size, going from 24 up to 81 fields per report, including a number of fields on personal data of the traders involved.

30 September - An event to help you prepare for MiFIR

London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) currently operates the largest Approved Reporting Mechnism (ARM) in Europe, UnaVista, helping over 10,000 counterparties report for MiFID. With the upcoming changes to the regulation we are holding a series of educational events to help firms understand how they will be affected and what they need to do to prepare.

There will also be an opportunity to understand how firms can use their connection to the DTCC to report for MiFIR via UnaVista. Christopher Childs, CEO of DTCC will be there to answer questions.