To facilitate cross-border investment services within the European Union by enhancing competition among the financial markets of the 25 Member States. To enable banks and other investment companies to compete with stock exchanges. To give access to markets to entities other than intermediaries, including retail investors. To raise operators transparency level and ensure greater protection for their clients, introducing the obligation to execute client orders on the best possible terms.

These are the objectives of MiFID, Market in Financial Instruments Directive.

Approved by the European Parliament in 2004, from November 2007 onwards MiFID has changed the framework of rules governing financial markets and services in Europe, replacing the Investment Service Directive (ISD) adopted in 1993.