Are your new MiFID II teams ready for prime time?
The Financial Times ran an article a few weeks ago about the hiring frenzy going on at banks in preparation for MiFID II.
As they point out, “the number of job adverts on LinkedIn for MiFID-related roles has more than quadrupled in the last year in a sign of how companies are scrambling to be ready for the far-reaching European regulation.”
I’ll point out that dealing with MiFID II, as well as any other new piece of financial regulation for that matter, is about much more than adding bodies to certain departments. Your people must, of course, understand the intent and details of the regulations. Going further, however, they must have a solid understanding of your data – where it comes from, how it’s being handled, how it’s being stored, and how they can access it. Above all, they must know how to ask the right questions in order to ensure compliance. Simply having a large group of very smart people will not get you very far if they spend too much time looking at the wrong information or attempting to wade through huge reports that can easily obfuscate critical data.
Your compliance team needs a data and analytics infrastructure that enables them to see the big picture, and to zoom in to see the tiniest details – on a trade-by-trade, tick-by-tick basis. And they need to do this efficiently. It’s no good finding a compliance problem well after the fact. They must be able to spot problems as they are happening and to take corrective action immediately.
The days of waiting for an end-of-day report to figure out if and where things went wrong are over.
The full FT article is still worth reading, even now in January. Find it here: https://www.ft.com/content/159ae17e-c087-11e7-b8a3-38a6e068f464
As they point out, “the number of job adverts on LinkedIn for MiFID-related roles has more than quadrupled in the last year in a sign of how companies are scrambling to be ready for the far-reaching European regulation.”
I’ll point out that dealing with MiFID II, as well as any other new piece of financial regulation for that matter, is about much more than adding bodies to certain departments. Your people must, of course, understand the intent and details of the regulations. Going further, however, they must have a solid understanding of your data – where it comes from, how it’s being handled, how it’s being stored, and how they can access it. Above all, they must know how to ask the right questions in order to ensure compliance. Simply having a large group of very smart people will not get you very far if they spend too much time looking at the wrong information or attempting to wade through huge reports that can easily obfuscate critical data.
Your compliance team needs a data and analytics infrastructure that enables them to see the big picture, and to zoom in to see the tiniest details – on a trade-by-trade, tick-by-tick basis. And they need to do this efficiently. It’s no good finding a compliance problem well after the fact. They must be able to spot problems as they are happening and to take corrective action immediately.
The days of waiting for an end-of-day report to figure out if and where things went wrong are over.
The full FT article is still worth reading, even now in January. Find it here: https://www.ft.com/content/159ae17e-c087-11e7-b8a3-38a6e068f464
