Law360, London (July 29, 2016, 11:01 PM BST) -- The Financial Conduct Authority launched a wide-ranging consultation Friday on the implementation of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II in the U.K., sounding out the financial professionals who will fall under the measure's jurisdiction in January 2018.The 336-page consultation paper from the U.K.'s financial regulator seeks views on nine areas in its handbook and sets an Oct. 28 deadline for responses. Topics to be explored include commodity derivatives, supervision, prudential standards, senior management arrangements, systems and controls, remuneration requirements for sales staff, whistleblowing and complaint handling, the agency said.MiFID II is a massive, complex set of rules governing the financial services sector, covering everything from...
"Market competition is a good thing", according to Eric Jing, president of Chinese firm Ant Financial Services Group, who also said he thought "merchant fees in the US payments market are too high." Mr Jing's company Alipay, Ant Financial's online payments unit, does not use state-backed company Unionpay, which has a monopoly on bank cards in the country, when processing online transactions. Alipay has a 68% share of China's mobile payments market, and revenues last year were an estimated CNY139bn ($21bn).