MiFID II Directive

The Market in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II) came into effect on 3rd January 2018.

This directive is an overhaul of the existing MiFID legislation having been in force since 2007. Its key focus is consumer protection and aims to:

  • increase transparency & investor protection

  • increase share dealing transaction reporting for stockbrokers

  • increase the number of reportable fields and transaction types for stockbrokers

This initiative directly impacts our broker partners (e.g. Link Asset Services, previously known as Capita Asset Services, and Equiniti) who must ensure their processes are aligned with the increased reporting requirements of MiFID II. A number of share plan processes are supported or delivered through stockbroker services (e.g. cashless exercises, SIP and Sharestore sales), and so are caught by the legislation. The key change is a requirement to collect some additional personal information from individuals and companies when dealing in shares. Share plan participants will need to provide the broker with their nationality, date of birth and national ID which will differ depending on their primary nationality. For more information on National Client Identifiers please refer to the table found below. Failure to provide the required information will result in the broker not being able to execute any trading.

National Client Identifiers required for MiFID II reporting (PDF 374MB)