A survey by SunGard, provider of software and processing solutions for financial services, and TradeTech, a research firm, has suggested that many financial services firms are unhappy with the support they are receiving from their national regulators as they prepare for the MiFID November 1st deadline.
The research catalogues changing attitudes towards MiFID and responses from more than 300 financial institutions worldwide.
Many firms are dissatisfied with the assistance they are receiving from national regulators. Half the respondents stated that their national regulators were either “bad” (32 percent) or “very bad” (19 percent) in helping them to get ready for the directive.
In the UK, respondents were divided on whether the FSA’s (Financial Services Authority) minimal guidance, principles-based approach to MiFID was a good one – only 54 percent believed that this is “the best approach to prevent regulatory overload”, with the remaining respondents stating that this approach “makes it difficult to understand exactly what requirements the FSA desires, adding to the compliance task”.
“While it is good to see that more firms now feel their preparations for MiFID are almost there, it is clear that still too many firms view this as just another compliance issue,” says Bob Fuller, chief executive officer at Equiduct.