12/05/23 (Agence Europe) – The European Federation of Investors and Financial Services Users (Better Finance) on Thursday 11 May expressed its concerns about the ongoing interinstitutional negotiations on the ‘MIFIR’ Regulation and the ‘MiFID’ Directive governing markets in financial instruments (see EUROPE 13172/8). Better Finance believes that, as it stands, “market structure - a key component of the Capital Markets Union action plan - is still biased against the interests of retail investors” and that a “true broad-based threshold” should be introduced for systematic internalisers (SIs), which execute certain client orders outside a regulated market. Amongst other things, the Federation also regrets that, according to the latest developments in the discussions between the co-legislators, Member States may opt out of the ban on detrimental payments for order flow (‘PFOF’), initially foreseen in the Commission’s ‘MiFIR’ proposal. (TM)