Industry standards bodies collaborating on joint MiFID initiatives have moved to distance themselves from their own IT working group, which has been spun off as a commercial entity by its chairman PJ Di Giammarino.
The IT Subject Group of the MiFID Joint Working Group (JWG) was originally established under the auspices of FIX Protocol Ltd, ISITC Europe, the Reference Data User Group (RDUG) and SIIA/FISD to address the compliance requirements created by the European Union (EU) Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID).
The IT group - which was co-chaired by consultant PJ Di Giammarino and DrKW's Bob Fuller - has moved to capitalise on its brand recognition and industry buy-in and split off into a separate independent commercial venture named JWG-IT Ltd.
In a statement, the MiFID JWG stresses that the new commercial entity is no longer affiliated with their own programmes and will in future be treated as an third party vendor.
"Although participants from the IT Subject Group recently formed an independent commercial venture named JWG-IT Ltd, FPL, ISITC Europe and SIIA/FISD want to stress that this commercial entity is not affiliated with the MiFID Joint Working Group or their associations."
The spin-off was reportedly instigated after Giammarino and Fuller decided a voluntary venture would not be able to adequately address the technological implications of MiFID for banks in the EU.
The new venture will be set up as a 'think tank' organisation that will help banks deal with the IT implications of the MiFID directive, which is expected to come into force on 1 November 2007. It is thought that Di Giammarino will be CEO of the enterprise, which will produce regular reports and seek subscriptions from investment banks, while Fuller will act as consultant.
The separation comes as the MiFID JWG says it has achieved initial targets and is now entering the second phase of the collaboration.
Having completed technical gap analysis between FIX and the requirements of MiFID within the Standards Protocols Subject Group, FPL says it is now scaling down its involvement with the working group as it has demonstrated that the FIX Protocol is well suited to servicing MiFID's pre- and post -trade messaging requirements.
Phase two of industry collaboration will consist of four subject groups. The SIIA/ FISD continues to lead the real-time market data subject group while ISITC Europe hosts the MiFID Web site as well as managing the best execution and reference data subject groups. The cross jurisdiction focus group will continue to be administered by its members.