IT - New requirements about financial intermediaries in Italy
On 11 March 2021, CONSOB issued a publication amending the regulation containing the implementing rules of the legislative decree 24 February 1998, no. 58, on the knowledge and competence requirements of the personnel of financial intermediaries.
Starting from April, intermediaries will be required to evaluate how to set up the most suitable internal organizational processes to ensure quality training and professional updating for their employees. All the safeguards provided for by the European Mifid2 legislation, regarding the knowledge and competence of personnel, aimed at ensuring the protection of customers in terms of information transparency, remain unchanged. This is the implication of the amendments to the Intermediaries Regulation approved by Consob (Resolution no. 21755 of 10 March 2021 – only Italian version) which will be in force from 31 March next.
On the basis of the new regulatory framework, the evaluation of the training and professional updating methods of the subjects engaged in financial advice is entrusted to the intermediaries themselves and no longer to a prescriptive detailed discipline. By this way, Consob intends to allow greater flexibility of the organizational safeguards of each intermediary based on the principle of proportionality.