European Commission Confirms One Year MiFID II Delay

The MiFID II delay has been widely expected since early November last year and the European banking regulation is now set to come in to force on Jan. 3, 2018, a year later than planned.

A statement from the European Commission said the decision had been reached due to "exceptional technical implementation challenges faced by regulators and market participants" and "the complex technical infrastructure that needs to be set up for the MiFID II package to work effectively".

The European Commission also states that the European Securities and Market Authority (ESMA) would have been unable to fulfill its obligation of collecting data from 300 trading venues on 15 million financial instruments, as "neither competent authorities, nor market participants, would have the necessary systems ready by 3 January 2017", according to ESMA.

"Given the complexity of the technical challenges highlighted by ESMA, it makes sense to extend the deadline for MiFID II," said Jonathan Hill, commissioner for financial services, financial stability and capital markets union, in a statement. "We will therefore give people another year to prepare properly and make the necessary changes to their systems. Meanwhile, we are pressing ahead with the level II legislation to implement MiFID II and expect to announce those measures shortly."

In November, WatersTechnology spoke to vendors about their thoughts on the potential of a MiFID II delay.