protection equals risk

The introduction of MiFID on 1 November has been widely touted as the biggest improvement to financial regulation since Big Bang. That means it is also likely to cause the biggest unintended consequences. Once again, it looks like poor investors will be the greatest victims. How can that be, when one of MiFID's main objectives is to extend a uniform high standard of consumer protection across Europe? Categorisation The basic principle is that clients are to be categorised as retail clients, professional clients or market counterparties, by a process of elimination. If they are not cou...