A report published by JWG-IT, a think-tank for EU-driven IT change in financial services, has found that there are widespread gaps in current infrastructure which financial institutions need to fill in order to meet key MiFID changes. The most significant gaps lie in transaction and trade reporting, customer data management, best execution and record keeping, the report finds.
“We have established a community to work together to develop practical solutions to compliance problems,” says PJ Di Giammarino, CEO, JWG-IT. “To help the broader industry, we are pleased to offer the reference implementation plans and frameworks that came out of our workshops, so that the entire supply chain can focus on what needs to be done,” he adds.
The whitepaper, entitled ‘MiFID: The roadmap to implementation’, is the result of 25 workshops netting 150 days of collaborative research with 30 financial institutions from both the buy- and sell-side.
“Over the past year, through our protected collaboration model, back-office experts have identified MiFID’s change drivers, developed the market models and detailed what it will take to get to a solution,” says Jitz Desai, director, JWG-IT. “The EU’s Wars of the Roses have started and we are using the framework in this report to analyse the ‘known unknowns’ which the implementer must monitor to ensure that the job gets done,” he adds.
“The industry is already behind the game with fewer than 200 work days left, so firms and vendors need to be very careful about where they focus their precious resources,” comments David Seacombe, director, JWG-IT. “Testing of new processes should start within the next two months but it will be very difficult to meet the required timetable because many small firms still have no access to agreed architectures,” he adds.