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All experts concurred that the harmonisation of the European financial market is inevitable. There was also a consensus that there must be no compromises as regards transparency when it comes to the execution of orders placed by private investors.
On Tuesday, 23 November 2010 Boerse Stuttgart carried out its fourth congress on the EU Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID).
Almost 70 delegates from the fields of supervision, banking, investment advice and academia discussed the present state of affairs and how the Directive is being put into effect by banks, stock exchanges and public authorities. A further topic on the agenda were the anticipated effects from the revision of the MiFID that is currently taking place. The Directive was implemented into German law on 1 November 2007 and is currently being amended.
"With our conference on the MiFID Directive we have successfully established a platform at the Stuttgart Stock Exchange where experts from all relevant areas can exchange views. The positive response we have encountered and the fact that this is already the fourth time that this conference has been held shows that this is still a burning issue and underlines the controversy attracted by a subject so central to the question of marketplace regulation," stressed Dr Christoph Boschan, Managing Director at Baden-Wuerttembergische Wertpapierboerse.
This year the speakers included Dr Günter Birnbaum, Executive Director, Securities Supervision, at the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin), Michael Fridrich, Unit G3 – Securities Markets – of the European Commission, Professor Dr Peter Gomber, (holds the Chair of Business Administration at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, University of Frankfurt am Main) Georg Baur, Director at the Association of German Banks, Berlin, and Michael Kieß, Authorised Signatory and Best Execution Expert at Boerse Stuttgart.
In his talk on the minimum requirements for compliance and best execution Dr Günter Birnbaum stressed that, even in future, the Compliance departments of banks will not be the extended arm of the BaFin. They will continue to advise and support the staff. However, Compliance departments will also focus on monitoring investment advisers and dependent agents in the branches or locally. According to the ‘Minimum Requirements for Compliance’ such monitoring will now have to take place regularly and BaFin must be able to keep track of these activities through an audit plan. "It will come as no surprise if BaFin keeps a sharp eye on Compliance in future," said Dr Birnbaum.
Michael Kieß in his talk emphasised that transparency is one of the crucial issues, especially for Boerse Stuttgart. For this reason Boerse Stuttgart's Trading Surveillance Office will now be publishing additional and informative key figures on trading quality in order to help fulfil the central objective of MiFID: to achieve the best possible execution of orders for private investors.
