Asset managers have one week left to prepare for one of the biggest ever overhauls of European financial regulations before they "run out of time", a senior member of trade body the Investment Association said this morning.

Preparations for the update to the European Union’s Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, which comes into effect on January 3, will stall in the run-up to Christmas as operations and technology teams wind down and start to implement code freezes on internal systems, Ross Barrett, capital markets specialist at the IA, told a Financial News breakfast briefing hosted by Yolanda Bobeldijk.