Investment services and activities

MiFID 2 Anatomy™ →Go uptown ANNEX I: LISTS OF SERVICES AND ACTIVITIES AND FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS SECTION A: Investment services and activities (1) Reception and transmission of orders in relation to one or more financial instruments; (2) Execution of orders on behalf of clients; (3) Dealing on own account; (4) Portfolio management; (5) Investment advice; (6) Underwriting of financial instruments and/or placing of financial instruments on a firm commitment basis; (7) Placing of financial instruments without a firm commitment basis; (8) Operation of an MTF; (9) Operation of an OTF. SECTION B: Ancillary services (1) Safekeeping and administration of financial instruments for the account of clients, including custodianship and related services such as cash/collateral management and excluding maintaining securities accounts at the top tier level; (2) Granting credits or loans to an investor to allow him to carry out a transaction in one or more financial instruments, where the firm granting the credit or loan is involved in the transaction; (3) Advice to undertakings on capital structure, industrial strategy and related matters and advice and services relating to mergers and the purchase of undertakings; (4) Foreign exchange services where these are connected to the provision of investment services; (5) Investment research and financial analysis or other forms of general recommendation relating to transactions in financial instruments; (6) Services related to underwriting. (7) Investment services and activities as well as ancillary services of the type included under Section A or B of Annex 1 related to the underlying of the derivatives included under points (5), (6), (7) and (10) of Section C where these are connected to the provision of investment or ancillary services. SECTION C: Financial instruments (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). MiFID 2: Less fondly known as EU Directive 2014/65/EU (EUR Lex) | MiFID 1Articles: 16(7) (Recording of Communications) Tell me more Sign up for our newsletter — or just get in touch: for ½ a weekly 🍺 you get to consult JC. Ask about it here.

Points to note: You must have a taste for multi-dimensional chess if you want to understand what is required in the world of commodities, freight, weather derivatives and emission allowances. To wit:

Section C of Annex I to MiFID includes the following emissions and commodity products as within the scope for financial instruments:

(4) options, futures, swaps, forwards 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, forwards and any other derivative contracts 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;

In scope

• Actual emission allowances, resembling as they do abstract financial instruments — and actually listed as such in Section C of Annex III of MiFID 2 (see point 11! they just snuck in there!) are in scope.
• Emission allowances derivatives, whether physically- or cash-settled, are in scope.
• Cash-settled commodity derivatives — including ones where either party has an option to cash-settle — are in scope.
• Weather derivatives, freight, inflation and economic indicator derivatives that can be cash-settled (it would be kind of fun having physically-settled weather derivatives wouldn’t it) are in scope.

Out of... In scope

• Physically-settled commodity derivatives which (per below) would otherwise be out of scope, if not used “for commercial purposes” and having “the characteristics of derivative financial instruments” are in scope. That one had you going didn’t it!

Really out of scope

• Actual commodities, being consumable, perishable, paint ’em yellow ’n’ pass ’em off as copper, real-world things that people actually need to live, are out of scope.
• Physically-settled commodity derivatives (not falling into the no-man’s land bucket above) are out of scope ...

... unless they are traded on an EU trading venue, (i.e, OTC physically-settled commodity derivatives) in which case they are in scope ...

... unless they are “wholesale energy products traded on an OTF that must be physically settled” — which case they are out of scope again. I DON’T MAKE THE RULES FOLKS.