Every financial institution has its own business objectives but all are subject to regulatory compliance. Global regulatory change in financial services is continuous and inevitable. The latest is the EU’s “Market in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFid)” to be implemented by November 2007. MiFid increases investor protection and market efficiency and is based around a number of new directives, in particular:

• Capital Requirements Directive (CRD) This sets requirements for the regulatory capital a firm must hold to cover liabilities to clients, and takes effect on January 1st 2007
• Electronic regulatory reporting (ERR). Societies must use ERR to submit returns to regulators including information on key risks to which it is exposed and data which proves compliance. ERR will let regulatory authorities almost instantly target societies holding insufficient regulatory capital under CRD. It takes effect in November 2007.

CRD compliance means less cash needs to be taken out of the institution to cover client liabilities. ERR cuts manual compliance costs, and it also means CRD data used for ERR will directly and rapidly impact cash reserves

The short timescales of ERR will force those affected to chose between continuous compliance or increasing the amount of CRD capital set aside. Continuous compliance means aligning, new regulatory requirements with work already being done in the organisation - clearly an efficient and cost effective way forward.

If your organisation will need to comply with the MiFid directive, Infoshare’s continuous data quality solution can help. To find out more, download our white paper “ MiFid: An implementation Guide” or contact Jane Keys by email: jane.keys@infoshare-is.com or call her on : +44 (0) 1280 860 131