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BETTER FINANCE, the European Federation of Investors and Financial Services Users, is becoming increasingly concerned by the ongoing "MiFID/MiFIR review" trialogues – interinstitutional negotiations involving the European Commission, Council, and Parliament.
While the discussions are highly technical and complex, it is imperative that retail investors are able to benefit from a level playing field in transparent and regulated European securities trading. Under the current texts however, market structure - a critical component of the CMU Action Plan – is still biased against the interests of retail investors.
Moreover, BETTER FINANCE regrets that the process to date has been dominated by particular industry interest (i.e., large buy-side and sell-side corporations), and is becoming increasingly technical and undemocratic, excluding input from buy-side stakeholders, specifically EU citizens as end investors.
The MiFIR review aimed to enhance transparency and ensure fair competition among execution platforms, by establishing an EU-wide Consolidated Tape for shares, bonds, and ETFs, using real-time data, as well as strengthening market structure requirements and establishing measures to prevent conflicts of interests.
BETTER FINANCE identifies three key concerns for retail investors in the MiFID/MiFIR review:
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