UK extends Mifid deadline

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After discussions with reporting firms and trade bodies, the UK Financial Services Authority (FSA) has decided to move the UK implementation date for the new transaction-reporting regime under the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (Mifid) to Monday November 5, rather than Thursday, November 1.

The FSA hopes that avoiding a mid-week cutover will reduce the implementation risk associated with the transition to the new reporting regime, both for firms and approved reporting mechanisms (ARMs). Firms should continue to provide transaction reporting to their permitted reporting systems (PRSs) in the current format up to and including November 2. Specific timing of the pre-Mifid cut-off point has been left to the discretion of individual firms, but after this date transaction reports must be submitted in the new Mifid-compliant format and any older formats will be rejected.

Under Mifid, firms are required to report all regulated transactions through systems that comply with specific requirements detailed in Article 12, defined as ARMs by the FSA. Currently reporting services are approved as PRSs on the basis of having the required fields, an agreed interface and beneficial impact to the firms and are listed in the FSA’s Supervision Manual. Mifid changes these requirements, so all existing PRSs will have to re-apply to become ARMs and comply with Mifid.

The FSA has advised firms that they “should make all reasonable attempts to ensure their reporting at cutover is as complete as possible”.