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Germany’s MiKaDiv regime and the EU FASTER Directive will transform how financial institutions report investment income and manage tax relief, with both aiming to digitise reporting, increase transparency, and reduce tax abuse. To comply, however, they introduce significant operational demands, and the time for financial institutions to act is now to avoid any penalties once the regulations come into effect.
Here are five practical steps our experts have put together to help your organisation better prepare for MiKaDiv and EU FASTER, and how Xceptor can help.
1. Evaluate and update systems
A first step is to evaluate your current technology stack and capabilities against the requirements of MiKaDiv and EU FASTER and understand what your organisation must replace, remove, or optimise to meet the standards of both regulatory regimes.
Once you’ve evaluated your stack, put a plan in place to implement and enhance your digital reporting and systems to ensure they will meet the requirements MiKaDiv and EU FASTER outline. This includes readiness for bulk submissions via DIP KAFE and integration with APIs like ELMA5 for electronic filing.
New tax relief procedures will also require updates to legal documentation and onboarding workflows to manage withholding tax relief processes when the changes take effect. For example, intermediaries must disclose full custody chains and manage UUIDs for tax reclaims under MiKaDiv. Beginning technology upgrades early to support digital reporting and certification processes will ensure a smooth transition.
How Xceptor Helps:
The Xceptor platform supports digital tax reporting workflows, including document generation, validation, and submission, helping firms transition away from manual processes. It also automates tax document management, including onboarding, validation, and electronic filing, ensuring readiness for digital certification and reducing manual intervention across the custody chain. For example, we collect all new data points required by the German Tax Authority – something that is a challenge for many clients as significantly more information is now required – and solve for this through a structured questionnaire.
2. Map the custody chain and ensure scalability
Both regimes demand transparency for the purpose of withholding tax relief and reporting, including disclosure of LEIs and holdings – which are required under MiKaDiv and expected under EU FASTER – and detailed securities and holding data.
EU FASTER likewise creates a digital reporting and relief process that relies on richer reporting from intermediaries. Therefore, a first step is to identify all intermediaries involved in the custody chain and ensure data-sharing agreements are in place. For firms managing omnibus accounts, this step is critical to ensure downstream data can be accessed and reported accurately.
If your organisation has already started making technology changes to adapt to MiKaDiv under Germany’s Withholding Tax Modernisation Act, ensure those changes are scalable. FASTER and MiKaDiv share many similarities, with the two having been explicitly aligned in national planning with an emphasis on faster digital relief, stronger validation and anti-abuse checks. However, the exact mechanics (holding-period length and certification rules) and implementations vary on a national level, and so solutions should be built in a way that allows easy extension to other jurisdictions.
How Xceptor helps:
Automate the collection and validation of custody chain data and enables reusable logic and workflows, reducing the need for market-specific rebuilds.
3. Strengthen data governance
EU FASTER and MiKaDiv both require extensive data reporting, including beneficial owner information, securities data, custody chain LEIs, and settlement details. MiKaDiv specifically requires unique identifiers (UUIDs) and mandates the reporting of transaction history spanning one year before and 45 days after the dividend payment date, while FASTER introduces digital tax residency certificates (eTRCs) streamline and secure tax relief.
To meet these demands, firms must develop a comprehensive data model that maps key sources and dependencies to regulatory requirements. This model should ensure accurate, complete, and timely data collection across all required fields, while also supporting interoperability between intermediaries and compliance with privacy and data-sharing obligations.
How Xceptor helps:
Firms can build robust data models that align with regulatory requirements, ingesting and transforming data from any source to ensure consistency and compliance.
4. Team readiness: Assess, collaborate / prepare, and upskill
MiKaDiv and FASTER will significantly impact multiple departments across financial institutions, from tax and operations to compliance and IT. To prepare, firms should start with impact assessments to identify gaps in workflows, documentation, and systems.
Next, educate teams on new workflows, liabilities, and reporting obligations such as custody chain reporting, UUID generation, digital tax residency certificates, and Certified Financial Intermediary registration. Cross-functional training programmes are essential to ensure all departments upskill their roles accordingly and understand their role in implementing these new regimes and maintaining ongoing compliance. Aligning processes now will position your organization to meet regulatory deadlines and unlock the benefits of streamlined digital tax relief.
How Xceptor helps:
Our intuitive interface and audit trail features support collaboration across teams and simplify onboarding to new processes.
5. Monitor regulatory updates
While German e-filing is already live, MiKaDiv and FASTER are not due to be implemented until 2027 and 2030, respectively. Therefore, keeping up to date with any new or local guidance for each will be imperative to ensure compliance with member state-specific rules.
Firms must monitor updates from tax authorities and industry bodies to stay compliant. Xceptor’s flexible platform allows firms to adapt quickly to evolving regulations without rebuilding core systems.
Ready for MiKaDiv and FASTER? Here’s how Xceptor can help
MiKaDiv and EU FASTER are not just regulatory updates. They are a call to modernise tax operations. Acting now will support a smoother transition, reduce risk, and position firms to respond confidently as expectations evolve.
Xceptor Tax is already helping 8 out of the top 10 global custodians, along with asset managers, and intermediaries prepare for these changes. From data ingestion to digital reporting, Xceptor’s platform enables end-to-end data automation built for compliance, scalability, and control.
Explore how Xceptor can support your MiKaDiv and FASTER readiness: xceptor.com/solutions/tax-processing
