Less than half of US buy-side expect direct impact from MiFID II

ITG warns MiFID II will have a significant impact beyond the shores of Europe.

A survey of asset managers based in North America has found just 43% expect European regulation MiFID II to have a direct impact on them.

The poll of 100 buy-siders - carried out by ITG - also found that despite this, 82% of those surveyed plan to fully unbundle all of their brokers globally.

Just 8% plan to establish a research payment account ahead of MiFID II, whereas 59% expect to pay for research using commission sharing agreements.

MiFID II requires buy-siders to separate trading commissions from investment research payments via a research payment account.

The new rules are set to come into effect on 3 January 2018.

ITG’s head of global commission management, Jack Pollina, explained MiFID II will have a significant impact “well beyond the shores of Europe”.

“North American firms are anticipating these changes and are taking steps now to adapt to the changing expectations of their end investors,” he added.

Implementing MiFID II has been forecast to cost the financial industry a total of $2.1 billion in 2017.

A report published and authored by IHS Markit revealed the top 40 global investment banks and the top 400 global asset management firms will both spend in excess of $1 billion to adopt systems and processes for MiFID II compliance.

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