It’s been more than nine months since regulators overhauled European market structure, but things haven’t gone quite to plan.

Negotiations on the revised Markets in Financial Instruments Directive — or Mifid II — started in the aftermath of the financial crisis, with transparency dominating regulators’ thinking. This was obvious in the final legislation through rules that separated payments for trade execution and research, introduced pre and post-trade transparency for fixed income instruments and pushed over-the-counter derivatives onto regulated markets.