The Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority has issued a supplementary consultation on amendments to its securities business rules to align Swedish requirements with the European Commission's February 2026 changes to the MiFID II delegated directive under the EU Listing Act. The proposal would require investment firms that receive third party investment research without it being treated as a payment or benefit under the MiFID inducements framework to set objective criteria for their annual assessment of the research's quality, usefulness and value, including whether it supports better investment decisions, and to take necessary corrective action if it does not. The amended rules are proposed to enter into force on 1 October 2026. The new assessment and remediation requirements would apply regardless of whether research is paid for jointly with execution services or separately. At the same time, the authority proposes to remove current rules for research payment accounts that require firms to set out quality criteria and how the research supports better investment decisions in a separate governance document provided to clients. Consequential amendments would update cross references in the rules for fund management companies and alternative investment fund managers that are subject to the same third party payment and benefit regime. The proposal is expressly conditional on the EU amending directive entering into force, as the objection period for the European Parliament and the Council was still running. This consultation supplements the broader Listing Act package published on 29 January 2026. Comments are due by 8 June 2026, and the authority indicated it expects to be able to adopt the amendments no earlier than mid September 2026.
Finansinspektionen 2026-05-15
Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority proposes MiFID II research rule changes requiring annual quality criteria and corrective action
The Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority has launched a supplementary consultation on amendments to its securities business rules to align with the European Commission’s February 2026 changes to the MiFID II delegated directive under the EU Listing Act. The proposal would require investment firms receiving third party investment research outside the MiFID inducements framework to set objective criteria for annual assessments of research quality, usefulness and value, and to take corrective action where it does not support better investment decisions, while removing existing research payment account governance requirements. The proposal is conditional on the EU amending directive entering into force.