Due for implementation on 1 November 2007, MiFID sets the legislative framework for a single European financial services market. It impacts organisations currently governed by the Investment Services Directive, but also extends the range of instruments and services. MiFID will drive the most far-reaching changes in financial markets for over ten years and have a significant impact on financial services regulation and how firms operate and interact with customers.

The MiFID Policy Manager library will provide firms with a stable framework and a clear adoption strategy of MiFID directives as they appear in the coming 12 months. It allows the creation of policies and provides a platform for them to be communicated to all employees and agents, ensuring client-facing staff have access to their firm’s latest interpretation of MiFID and the standard MiFID rules. Once in the implementation phase, the MiFID library will fully demonstrate to the regulator that every attempt has been made to educate staff and agents in the requirements of MiFID and to ensure a compliant and uniform treatment of all customers and counterparties.

"MiFID is a complex regulation, with many variations. On one hand it is very prescriptive, requiring specific questions to be asked, specific date items collected or provided, and will impose different obligations on different members of staff with these staff being required to carry out specific processes," commented David Millar, Managing Director at DXL. "On the other hand, there are areas of MiFID which are not prescriptive and which allow firms, in conjunction with clients, to agree their own conditions and work to these. Firms must ensure that all levels of staff operate to the rules and the standard corporate guidelines from when MiFID comes into effect. The MiFID Policy Manager Library provides a unique MiFID resource, delivering consistency and helping significantly with MiFID planning and future implementation."

The MiFID Policy Manager library consists of the following areas:

Organisational; issues brought about by MiFID’s organisational requirements, for example, reporting lines, treatment of outsourcers, accounting policies, risk management, internal audit, compliance and security of data,
Client/Contractual; the treatment of new and existing clients and the contractual obligations required,
Trading Activities; the treatment of clients in all dealings pertaining to the services offered, the quotation of price or terms and the execution of any trade,
Reporting; all activities required of a regulated firm once a trade has been carried out.

"Iconium has one mission, to make compliance and governance simple. With MiFID we see yet another complexity thrown at the financial services community, just after they have coped with Sarbanes-Oxley and continually expanding FSA regulations," said Toby Waldock, CEO, Iconium Limited. "In Policy Manager we have created a framework to allow firms to embrace new regulations quickly and with much less pain than they have been able to in the past, where expensive consultancy has left them with reams of paper and very little on-going support. Policy Manager provides policy owners, policy users, and policy auditors with a single place to visit for all major compliance and regulatory policies, and removes cost and complexity whilst increasing consistency and clarity. We are extremely pleased to be co-operating with DXL in delivering another major library for Policy Manager."