Last week’s FIA Europe conference on MiFID II brought together an impressive list of speakers and a full house of delegates to hear presentations on the key areas of the directive and regulation that will have the most impact on the listed derivatives industry.
This included sessions on trading and execution issues (including the trading obligation); the obligations on DEA providers with respect to HFT/algo clients; indirect clearing; STP proposals; commodities; and open access.
Two keynote sessions, from FCA’s Stephen Hanks and ESMA’s Rodrigo Buenaventura and Carsten Ostermann, highlighted the areas of most concern and where the regulators are looking to the industry to comment with practical, specific and workable solutions. Hanks pointed out that there will only be 10-11 weeks between the closing date for the current consultation period and the publication of Technical Standards, which means that “specific rather than general response is best.” Similarly, ESMA’s Ostermann said that while the regulator received useful feedback on open access in the first consultation paper response, ESMA is “keen to listen to comments and suggestions on how to evolve this further”. On the difficult subject of indirect clearing, Buenaventura said that ESMA is aware of the legal and capital issues for an industry that has been doing indirect clearing for some time, but there needs to be one system for OTC and exchange-traded derivatives. The industry needs a workable regime from a legal perspective.
FIA Europe is working actively with member firms and maintaining ongoing dialogue with regulators to work towards submitting its responses to the consultation paper on 2 March.
