Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) II

The Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) II will come into effect on 3 January 2018 and deliver some significant changes to investing regulations in the UK.

With this article, we guide you through what the changes are, how they might affect the investment landscape and the impact it will have on you and the way in which you invest.

The MiFID II regulation has a strong focus on consumer protection and ensuring that customers are sold the right products for their needs. This means that any organisation that helps to facilitate your investments has to ensure that they are MiFID II compliant. This will differ depending on the services provided by your advisor or trading platform.

A key aim of the new regulation is to help prevent fraud and market abuse so firms are required to hold and report more information about its customers.

The main change surrounds details of your nationality/nationalities and providing something called a National Client Identifier (NCI). In the case of UK nationals the NCI is your National Insurance number. Non-UK nationals, and anyone who has multiple nationalities, may be asked for a different NCI, e.g. your passport number.

Additionally, if you have a third party linked to your account who makes investment decisions on your behalf, then this information will also be requested from the third party. If that third party is a company, different information will be required.

It is vital that you provide this information as failure to do so may mean you cannot trade after 2 January 2018. This includes standing instructions such as Regular Investments or Dividend Reinvestments.

Under MiFID II, providers like ourselves must issue statements every quarter, a change from the current requirement of an annual statement.

In addition, platforms and advisors must issue, at least annually, a statement of fees and costs for that year on any account and/or investments you hold. The aim is to provide you with a transparent overview of how much you are paying for the services you receive.

Click here to find out how the changes to 'complex’ products may affect you and the way in which you invest.