KPMG has praised City watchdog, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) for being one of the first of the European regulators to transpose the requirements of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) into the UK legal and regulatory requirements.

The FSA did this ahead of the deadline (1 February 2007) for individual Member State transposition.

On Friday 26 January, the FSA issued its Policy Statement 07/02 and the Handbook text for the MiFID requirements.

However, the precise requirements remain unclear in a number of areas.

Bernadine Reese, director at KPMG said: ‘Firms can begin to plan now for their best execution strategies, so that any changes, including those to their IT systems, will be able to be finalised in advance of the 1 November deadline. However, they must be prepared to revisit their approach as further information and guidance is received from CESR and the Commission.'

KPMG said it anticipated that the FSA is likely to be consulting with industry on remaining areas of concern over the coming months, including demonstrating the suitability of advice to professional clients for record keeping requirements.

Further reading:

European rules to cost London £1bn

Sarbox clever

MiFID: The IT reckoning cometh