MiFIR Definitions & Terms

European Economic Area (EEA) - As of October 2017, the EEA consists of the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.


Investment Firms - Article 4 (1) (1) of MiFID II defines investment firm as any legal person whose regular occupation or business is the provision of one or more investment services to third parties and/or the performance of one or more investment activities on a professional basis. The investment services and activities covered by the framework are listed in Section A of Annex I of MiFID II.
 

Transactions Executed - For the purposes of MiFIR Transaction Reporting, a transaction is the conclusion of an acquisition or disposal of one of the financial instruments covered by MiFIR. A transaction is considered to be executed when it resulted from one of the following activities performed by an Investment Firm:

  1. Reception or transmission of orders in relation to one or more financial instruments (exceptions apply under Article 4 of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/590);
  2. Execution of orders on behalf of clients;
  3. Dealing on own account;
  4. Making an investment decision in accordance with a discretionary mandate given by a client;
  5. Transfer of financial instruments to or from accounts.

[Ref: Articles 2 and 3 of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/590]
 

IB Broker - Accounts that trade financial instruments which are received and/or transmitted by one of the following Interactive Brokers Group entities ("IB Brokers"):

  • Interactive Brokers (U.K.) Limited
  • Interactive Brokers Central Europe Zrt.
  • Interactive Brokers Ireland Limited

 

Financial Instruments Covered by MiFIR - Article 26 (2) of Regulation (EU) No 600/2014 (MiFIR) lays out the transaction reporting obligation with regard to transactions in financial instruments listed below, irrespective of whether or not such transactions are carried out on the trading venue:

  1. Financial instruments which are admitted to trading or traded on a trading venue or for which a request for admission to trading has been made;
  2. Financial instruments where the underlying is a financial instrument traded on a trading venue; and
  3. Financial instruments where the underlying is an index or a basket composed of financial instruments traded on a trading venue.

The financial instruments covered by this requirement are legally enumerated in Section C of MiFID II:
(1) Transferable securities;
(2) Money-market instruments;
(3) Units in collective investment undertakings;
(4) Options, futures, swaps, forward rate agreements and any other derivative contracts relating to securities, currencies, interest rates or yields, emission allowances or other derivatives instruments, financial indices or financial measures which may be settled physically or in cash;
(5) Options, futures, swaps, forwards and any other derivative contracts relating to commodities that must be settled in cash or may be settled in cash at the option of one of the parties other than by reason of default or other termination event;
(6) Options, futures, swaps, and any other derivative contract relating to commodities that can be physically settled provided that they are traded on a regulated market, a MTF, or an OTF, except for wholesale energy products traded on an OTF that must be physically settled;
(7) Options, futures, swaps, forwards and any other derivative contracts relating to commodities, that can be physically settled not otherwise mentioned in point 6 of this Section and not being for commercial purposes, which have the characteristics of other derivative financial instruments;
(8) Derivative instruments for the transfer of credit risk;
(9) Financial contracts for differences;
(10) Options, futures, swaps, forward rate agreements and any other derivative contracts relating to climatic variables, freight rates or inflation rates or other official economic statistics that must be settled in cash or may be settled in cash at the option of one of the parties other than by reason of default or other termination event, as well as any other derivative contracts relating to assets, rights, obligations, indices and measures not otherwise mentioned in this Section, which have the characteristics of other derivative financial instruments, having regard to whether, inter alia, they are traded on a regulated market, OTF, or an MTF;
(11) Emission allowances consisting of any units recognised for compliance with the requirements of Directive 2003/87/EC (Emissions Trading Scheme).
 

National Identifiers - Under MiFIR, natural persons must be reported by using specific national identifiers required under a priority order that depends and varies on the Country of citizenship that is identified as relevant under MiFIR. The identifier can be a passport, a national ID card, a tax or personal code or a concatenation of full name and date of birth (“CONCAT”). The IB Broker will only request clients to provide national identifiers that are not already available.
 

Legal Entity Identifiers (“LEI”) = 20-character unique identifier based on the ISO 17442 for the global identification of legal entities that engage in financial transactions.
 

Commodity Derivatives Transactions that reduce risk in an objectively measurable way - When reporting transactions in commodity derivatives, the IB Broker will have to specify whether the transaction reduces risk in an objectively measurable way in accordance with Article 57 of Directive 2014/65/EU (“Art 57”).  The IB Broker will allow such transactions only from accounts held by entities that are non-financial entities using the account for trades in commodity derivatives that are intended to objectively reduce risk directly relating to their commercial activity in accordance with Art 57. (e.g. company that produces wheat that trades in such derivatives to hedge its commercial activity).

Account holders that make such a declaration in the Trading Permission section of their Account Management, agree that all the transactions executed in commodity derivatives for that account will be executed for reducing the risk under Art 57, and the IB Broker will report the relevant transactions accordingly.


Individual or algorithm responsible at the reporting firm for making the investment decision - Under MiFIR, Investment Firms are required to include in their transaction reports the identification of the individual or algorithm that was primarily responsible for making the investment decision within the firm to acquire or dispose of a financial instrument. Only one individual or algorithm can be identified as responsible with regard to a transaction, and Investment Firms must identify such individual or algorithm as specified in Article 8 of commission delegated regulation (EU) 2017/590.

In accordance with these requirements, your IB Broker has implemented a new section in Account Management and new features in the IB Trader Workstation to allow Investment Firms that report their transactions through an IB Broker to identify individuals and algorithms in compliance with the new obligations.


Individual responsible at the reporting firm for the execution of a transaction - Art 9 of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/590 requires Investment Firms to identify individuals or algorithms responsible for determining which trading venue to access […], which firms to transmit orders to or any other condition related to the execution of an order. While this requirement applies only to IB Brokers for the majority of the transactions reports (because the IB Broker is usually the entity that executes the transaction), when an order is submitted by an Investment Firm that transaction reports through an IB Broker via the Delegated Transaction Reporting, the specific user that has submitted the order will be reported as responsible for executing the transaction.
 

Article 4 of commission delegated regulation (EU) 2017/590 - Transmission of an order

1. An investment firm transmitting an order pursuant to Article 26(4) of Regulation (EU) No 600/2014 (transmitting firm) shall be deemed to have transmitted that order only if the following conditions are met:

(a) the order was received from its client or results from its decision to acquire or dispose of a specific financial instrument in accordance with a discretionary mandate provided to it by one or more clients;

(b) the transmitting firm has transmitted the order details referred to in paragraph 2 to another investment firm (receiving firm);

(c) the receiving firm is subject to Article 26(1) of Regulation (EU) No 600/2014 and agrees either to report the transaction resulting from the order concerned or to transmit the order details in accordance with this Article to another investment firm.
 

For the purposes of point (c) of the first subparagraph the agreement shall specify the time limit for the provision of the order details by the transmitting firm to the receiving firm and provide that the receiving firm shall verify whether the order details received contain obvious errors or omissions before submitting a transaction report or transmitting the order in accordance with this Article.

2. The following order details shall be transmitted in accordance with paragraph 1, insofar as pertinent to a given order:

(a) the identification code of the financial instrument;

(b) whether the order is for the acquisition or disposal of the financial instrument;

(c) the price and quantity indicated in the order;

(d) the designation and details of the client of the transmitting firm for the purposes of the order;

(e) the designation and details of the decision maker for the client where the investment decision is made under a power of representation;

(f) a designation to identify a short sale;

(g) a designation to identify a person or algorithm responsible for the investment decision within the transmitting firm;

(h) country of the branch of the investment firm supervising the person responsible for the investment decision and country of the investment firm's branch that received the order from the client or made an investment decision for a client in accordance with a discretionary mandate given to it by the client;

(i) for an order in commodity derivatives, an indication whether the transaction is to reduce risk in an objectively measurable way in accordance with Article 57 of Directive 2014/65/EU;

(j) the code identifying the transmitting firm.

For the purposes of point (d) of the first subparagraph, where the client is a natural person, the client shall be designated in accordance with Article 6. For the purposes of point (j) of the first subparagraph, where the order transmitted was received from a prior firm that did not transmit the order in accordance with the conditions set out in this Article, the code shall be the code identifying the transmitting firm. Where the order transmitted was received from a prior transmitting firm in accordance with the conditions set out in this Article, the code provided pursuant to point (j) referred to in the first subparagraph shall be the code identifying the prior transmitting firm. 

 3. Where there is more than one transmitting firm in relation to a given order, the order details referred to in points (d) to (i) of the first subparagraph of paragraph 2 shall be transmitted in respect of the client of the first transmitting firm.

4. Where the order is aggregated for several clients, information referred to in paragraph 2 shall be transmitted for each client.
 

Also see:

Overview of MIFIR Transaction Reporting

MiFIR Enriched and Delegated Transaction Reporting for EEA Investment Firms

MiFIR Information Required from Account Holders that do not have Reporting Obligations