NCC Members have free access to these Guidelines on the NCC Membership website.

The Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) is a cornerstone of the European Commission published Financial Services Action Plan (FSAP). The FSAP relates to a single market across the EU as a whole and consists of a set of measures to provide a legal and regulatory environment that supports the integration of EU financial markets.

MiFID comes into force 1st November 2007 and it seems that the UK will be able to meet this deadline despite the huge implementation and on-going costs. Companies are being encouraged to embrace the opportunities the legislation offers and deal with the 'issues' (including technology issues) prior to implementation.

These Guidelines take a retrospective look at what many hypothesised the directive would mean to firms prior to their scoping of their impact assessment. It examines the 'perception' versus the 'actual reality' after a detailed situation analysis had been performed by firms. These Guidelines also examine some of the opportunities that will be presented to organisations that have planned early for this new business environment.