The Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II) will come into force on 3 January 2018, meaning a one-year delay in its application. CTMFile has already written about what this delay would mean for corporate treasurers.

A statement by the European Commission (EC) said this was needed due to the “exceptional technical implementation challenges faced by regulators and market participants”.

MiFID delay: to avoid market disruption and legal uncertainty

The EC, together with the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), decided that delaying the application of MiFID by a year would avoid potential market disruption and legal uncertainty, seeing as market participants and competent authorities would not have the technical infrastructure in place by January 2017.

Complex systems are needed to handle MiFID requirements and, under the regulation, ESMA will have to collect data from about 300 trading venues on about 15 million financial instruments.

The regulation was introduced in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis to increase stability in securities markets, investment firms and intermediaries, while also creating a more competitive and integrated EU financial market.

EC to press ahead with MiFID level II legislation

In the EC's statement, Financial Services Commissioner Jonathan Hill said: "Given the complexity of the technical challenges highlighted by ESMA, it makes sense to extend the deadline for MiFID II. 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."

The EC also stated that the new deadline for MiFID will not affect the timeline for adoption of the 'level II' implementing measures under MiFID II/MiFIR.

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CTMFile take: Europe's financial marketeers may be breathing a collective sigh of relief as an extended grace period is introduced for MiFID. Do we now have a definitive date or will we see further delays down the line?