Scope To determine which firms are affected by MiFID 1 and which are not the directive distinguishes between "investment services and activities" ("core" services) and "ancillary services" ("non-core" services). More detail on the services in each category can be found in Annex 1 Sections A and B of MiFID 1. If a firm performs investment services and activities, it is subject to MiFID 1 in respect to both of these and also of ancillary services (and it can use the MiFID 1 passport to provide them to member states other than its home state). However, if a firm only performs ancillary services, it is not subject to MiFID 1 but also can not benefit from the MiFID 1 passport. MiFID 1 covers almost all tradable financial products except for certain foreign exchange trades. This includes commodity and other derivatives such as
freight,
climate and
carbon derivatives, which were not covered by ISD. That part of a firm's business that is not covered by the above is not subject to MiFID 1. Celent, a financial services consultancy, estimated in 2007 that under MiFID 1, the three largest EU jurisdictions—
France (
Germany), and the UK—would require publication of over 100 million additional trades annually, with spending increasing as well but at a slower rate, from €38 million yearly to close to €50 million.
Substance ;Authorisation, regulation and passporting: Firms covered by MiFID 1 will be authorised and regulated in their "home state" (broadly, the country in which they have their registered office). Once a firm has been authorised, it will be able to use the MiFID 1 passport to provide services to customers in other EU member states. These services will be regulated by the member state in their "home state" (whereas currently under ISD, a service is regulated by the member state in which the service takes place). ;Client categorisation: MiFID 1 requires firms to categorise clients as "eligible counterparties", professional clients, or retail clients (these have increasing levels of protection). Clear procedures must be in place to categorise clients and assess their suitability for each type of investment product. That said, the appropriateness of any investment advice or suggested financial transaction must still be verified before being given. ;Client order handling: MiFID 1 has requirements relating to the information that needs to be captured when accepting client orders, ensuring that a firm is acting in a client's best interests and as to how orders from different clients may be aggregated. ;Pre-trade transparency: MiFID 1 requires that operators of continuous order-matching systems must make aggregated order information on "liquid shares" available at the five best price levels on the buy and sell-side; for quote-driven markets, the best bids and offers of market makers must be made available. (Note consideration is being given to extending these requirements to other financial instruments. Under Article 65(1) of MiFID 1, the European Commission is due to submit a report to the European Parliament and to the Council on extending pre and post-trade transparency requirements to transactions in financial instruments other than shares by October 2007.) ;Post-trade transparency: MiFID 1 requires firms to publish the price, volume, and time of all trades in listed shares, even if executed outside of a regulated market, unless certain requirements are met to allow for deferred publication. (Note see comment above regarding extension of these requirements to other financial instruments). ;Inducements and investment research: One of the most controversial aspects of MiFID 2 is that it severely restricts asset managers' ability to obtain investment research with client commissions. ;Best execution: Directive 2014/65/EU requires that firms take all sufficient steps to obtain the best possible result in the execution of an order for a client. The
best possible result is not limited to execution price but also includes cost, speed, the likelihood of execution and likelihood of settlement and any other factors deemed relevant. MiFID 2's "all sufficient steps" test sets a somewhat higher standard than the previous "all reasonable steps" standard in MiFID 1. ;
Systematic Internaliser: A
Systematic Internaliser is a firm that executes orders from its clients against its own book or against orders from other clients. MiFID 2 will treat Systematic Internalisers as mini-exchanges, hence, for example, they will be subject to pre-trade and post-trade transparency requirements (see above). ==Market fragmentation==