Elective eligible counterparties - COBS Provision

Revision as of 17:18, 5 November 2018 by Amwelladmin (talk | contribs)
The JC’s Reg and Leg resource™
UK Edition


To see the current text of COBS 3.6.4 in the FCA handbook, click here.


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MiFID Categorisation


The famous "elective ECP" categorisation. As you'll see from the snapshot below:

  • Many per se professional clients are also per se eligible counterparties - but not all.
  • Those per se professional clients that are not per se eligible ECPs - ie that are elective ECPs - can only be treated as ECPs if they have requested this categorisation. Now one might, of course, gently put that idea in such a client's head: nothing wrong with that. Politely suggesting an elective ECP might wish to think about requesting an upgrade is one thing - but one cannot unilaterally categorise an elective ECP as an ECPwithout them first requesting it.
  • an "elective professional client" (ie one is able to be ugraded from retail to professional) cannot further request to be treated as an ECP.