MiFID is the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive and MiFIR is the associated regulation. MiFID I was applicable across the European Union from November 2007 but was replaced by MiFID II and MiFIR within all member states in January 2018.
Since Brexit in 2020, the U.K. onshored MiFID II/MiFIR rules in domestic law but initiated the Wholesale Markets Review to review the rules and create a bespoke U.K. regime.
MiFID II and MiFIR introduced a number of regulatory themes that include:
- Reducing systematic risk
- Providing greater transparency
- Improved consumer protection
- Creation of a single market within the E.U.
ICE Solutions by Regulation Element
ICE’s value-add services are designed to help customers determine necessary steps and what data to include in reporting overseen by regulatory specialists monitoring evolving changes to the requirements.
| RTS 1/2 | RTS 22 | RTS 22/23 | RTS 27 | Directive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pre/Post-Trade Transparency | Transaction Reporting | Reporting Reference Data | Best Execution | Investor Protection |
New Transparency rules use instrument characteristics (e.g. issue size, maturity). MiFID II EU Liquidity Assessment Group contains groupings with inherent liquidity determination. EU LIS thresholds indicator sets the issuance size above which a category is considered LIS, based on EU Bond Groupings indicator. MiFID II UK Category determines trading status, the MiFID II UK Type groups securities by type and issuance size used to determine deferral. MiFID II UK Deferral Type provides relevant deferral time for a range of possible trade sizes. | MiFID II eligibility flags – driven by aggregation of relevant venues / Systematic Internalisers. EEA listed instruments and non-EEA listed instruments with underlyings listed in EEA (bringing a security into scope). ToTV / uTOTV using trading venue data. Details of underlying for eligible non-EEA listed securities. | Regulator reportable reference data attributes required for Transaction Reporting in RTS 22 and Venue reporting in RTS 23. Industry standard format data fields: e.g. CFI, LEI, FISN, UPI derivatives identifier, DSB data. | Evaluated and Market Pricing providing price discovery for inputs to Market Making and Trade Decision Making. Identify most favorable terms for the execution of a client order considering:
| Complex Product identification – drives rules for trading for retail customers and determining suitability of a product for a particular client. European MiFID Template (EMT) – Access product costs and charges, target market, leveraged product indicator in industry standard format. |
Upon the establishment of the U.K. specific MiFID regime, ICE created parallel data modules to reflect U.K. rules for the transparency requirements as well as when indicating complex instruments.
Enhanced Post-Trade Transparency Module (E.U. and U.K.)
Leveraging ICE’s extensive fixed income instrument database, ICE has created instrument categories and groupings that determine new bond post-trade deferral timings for the different trade size thresholds to meet the amendments to the E.U. and U.K. regulations in 2025 and 2026. Please note, both jurisdictions are removing the dynamic classification of liquid instruments that determines any deferral period (delivered from the Financial Instruments Transparency System (FITRS)) and are introducing instrument attribute defined rules1.
Investor Protection solutions
Through its extensive network of fund and asset managers, ICE is able to provide a solution for distributors of investment products who advise European retail or institutional investors. ICE provides several modules to support clients with their obligations across the key Investor Protection themes:
- Investor suitability guidance
- Target market assessment
- Investor sustainability preferences
- Costs and Charges disclosure
- Standardized data format
- Provision of KIDs
EMT / EPT – costs and charges
- 24 fields covering costs and charges both ex-ante and ex-post
- Ex-ante costs are estimations on the past and ex-post costs reported on a yearly basis, detail the actual costs incurred by the fund and are required for client cost reports
EMT / EPT – target market
- Including investor type, knowledge and experience, ability to bear losses, risk tolerance, client objectives and distrubution strategy
- EPT target market field according to PRIIPs methodology
Complex Product Indicator
- Rules-based logic applied across ICE’s instrument database
- Determining potential suitability of a product for a particular client when trading for retail customers
EET – sustainability data
Fields include:
- Mandatory SFDR PAIs
- E.U. Taxonomy alignment
- Exclusionary screens
- SFDR Classification (Articles 6, 8, 9)
Delivery options include web-based portal for access to PRIIPs KIDs, prospectuses and termsheets. Raw EMT / EPT / EET files including their historical versions for products traded in the E.U. via FTP, API or portal.
Contact usBest Execution solutions
With ICE’s Best Execution services, clients can carry out transaction cost analysis – compare a transaction value with an ‘arrival price’ – mid-market price of an investment at the point a transaction order was transmitted.
Fixed income
- Continuous Evaluated Pricing for fixed income instruments via API or desktop.
- Pricing at specific timestamps, bid / mid / offer levels as well as security ID, date and time.
OTC derivatives
- Historical point-in-time pricing for OTC derivatives for multi-asset coverage: FX, rates, credit, equities and commodities.
- Detail of prevailing market data points at nearest data cut to trade/quote time (term structure / implied volatility...) requested via Unique Product Identifier (UPI).
Listed markets
- Access ICE’s Tick History database for pricing history across listed markets assets.
- Request relevant identifiers and time window to receive market prices for comparison.
ICE’s deep multi-asset reference pricing capabilities offer on-demand access to trade comparison tools.
Comprehensive trade-by-trade transparency
Post-Trade performance measurement
Regulatory reporting and audit trail generation
Bulk historical files provide a ready-made audit trail that can be fed into MiFID II reporting systems.
Automatically generate reports – such as the “Best Execution” statement – without manual data extraction.
Enhanced client communication and documentation
With access to the full trade history, furnish clients with detailed execution summaries that illustrate how best-execution principles were applied.
Risk management
Continuous monitoring of tick data allows firms to flag abnormal price movements or unusually wide bid-ask spreads in a timely manner.
Identify and address such anomalies promptly to mitigate execution risk.
MiFID II2 requires investment firms to take "all sufficient steps" to obtain the best possible result for clients when executing orders, considering:
- Price
- Costs
- Speed
- Likelihood of execution and settlement
- Order size and nature
- Other relevant factors
Obligations when dealing in OTC products:
- Investment firms required to check “fairness” of the price proposed to the client
- To be achieved by "gathering market data used in the estimation of the price of such product and where possible, by comparing with similar or comparable products"
1 E.U. Reg: https://ec.europa.eu/transparency/documents-register/detail?ref=C(2025)3104&lang=en, U.K. Reg: PS24/14: Improving transparency for bond and derivatives markets | FCA
2 Applicable in the EU, UK has removed Best Execution reporting requirements