Hunt to reverse MiFID II ban on free research, Bloomberg reports

Jeremy Hunt, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, plans to roll back a piece of European Union legislation that forced financial firms to separate the cost of investment research from trading expenses, two people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg’s Joe Mayes. The so-called “unbundling” of research and trading services was a key feature of the EU’s Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, known as MiFID II, the report noted. Publicly traded large U.S. banks include Bank of America (BAC), Citi (C), Goldman Sachs (GS), JPMorgan (JPM), Morgan Stanley (MS), U.S. Bancorp (USB) and Wells Fargo (WFC). Publicly traded large European banks include Banco Santander (SAN), Barclays (BCS), Credit Suisse (CS), Deutsche Bank (DB), HSBC (HSBC), ING Groep (ING), Lloyds Banking (LYG), RBS (RBS) and UBS (UBS).