Dealing with MiFID II continues to be a major challenge for financial advisers, according to polls among more than 1,000 delegates who attended recent industry tech conferences.

Nearly two thirds of advisers (66%) who attended the events and voted said MiFID II (Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II) is the most challenging issue they face.

MiFID II imposes a number of investment transparency and disclosure requirements on planners and advisers. One is to notify clients if a client’s portfolio drops by more than 10% almost immediately.

MiFID II is designed to improve transparent and protection for investment clients but many advisers have complained about the amount of work involved to comply with the new rules.

Intelliflo asked attendees at its recent Change the Game conferences in London and Manchester: ‘Which of the following regulations gives/is giving/will give your firm the biggest headache?'

The voting was:

MiFID II: 66%
SM&CR: 22%
PROD: 7%
RMAR: 5%

Concerns about MiFID II also dominated Financial Planning Today’s annual Financial Planning Survey carried out recently. Key findings from the survey will be published in the next issue of Financial Planning Today magazine out next week.

At the Intelliflo event, attendees were also asked to name the ‘biggest opportunity for your business over the next three years?' Some 43% of the 425 delegates who took part in the poll put ‘digitised client service’ ahead of the other options. ‘Better client data from platforms and product providers’ was second at 17.6% and ‘Further software integrations and APIs’ was third at 13.4%. Word of mouth referrals and pension freedoms / baby boomers were also cited as important.

Intelliflo's executive chairman Nick Eatock said: "It's no surprise that MiFID II is on the minds of advisers as there are multiple mandatory requirements."

He added: "With regards to the question about their biggest opportunities, it's really interesting to see such overwhelming support for digitisation. Advisers are really engaging with the benefits tech can offer them in terms of communicating with clients plus providing them with a high-quality service that's also more time efficient from a business perspective."

Intelliflo's annual Change the Game conference, held in London in June and Manchester last week, had a combined attendance of 1,246 delegates.