Professional client

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MiFID Categorisation

• Professional clients: per se professional client | elective professional client
  
• ECPs: per se eligible counterparty | elective eligible counterparty | COBS 1 Annex 1 for disapplication of COBS rules to ECPs
  
• Retail client: See COBS 3.4: one who is not a professional client or an ECP
  
• Categorisation decision tree (pdf)
  

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Under the COBS rules, a professional client is one who is categorised as either a per se professional client, or an elective professional client.

There is some overlap with the other MiFID categorisations. An elective professional client is a subset of the class of retail clients; an eligible counterparty is a subset of per se professional clients.

There is a handy decision tree in the panel below.