MiFID is a far reaching financial reform that comes into effect in November 2007. It sets out a comprehensive regulatory regime covering investment services and financial markets, with an aim to achieving the following objectives:
- Build a single, seamless financial services market in the European Union
- Uphold the integrity and overall efficiency of the financial system
- Provide a coherent, risk-sensitive framework for regulating order execution arrangements in the European financial markets
Banks and financial services companies face myriad challenges from the imminent introduction of this fundamental and far reaching financial reform. Their IT systems will have to be scaled up to meet the following challenges:
- Managing complexities
- Changes in business process and accounting practices
- Transparency in pre-trade and post-trade operations
- Client classification and order handling to ensure best possible execution of orders
- Risk management
- Running legacy systems in parallel during transition
- Maintaining customer satisfaction levels while ensuing that technology changes deliver business requirements
- Complying with regulatory requirements
Software vendors are looking at vast opportunities that are arising as investment firms struggle to comply with MiFID. The need is for vastly superior trading platforms that support multilateral trading facilities and a common regulatory framework. As the deadline for the implementation of the new reform comes closer, vendors need to focus on:
- Maintaining product quality within timelines
- Maintaining testing rigor, straddling
- Evolving requirements
- Version - core/ customizations
- Builds
- Interfaces
- Test iterations
- Managing product life cycle costs
- Upgrading technology
Banks and software vendors can avail our extensive requirements analysis and financial domain focused independent testing services to implement these MiFID related changes successfully, within time and costs.
