FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — New regulations to protect investors, improve market transparency and honesty and prevent another financial crisis went into effect on Wednesday in Europe.

The rules are more than a million paragraphs long, took six years to write and approve, had to be delayed by a year, and despite Wednesday's start date still haven't been passed into national law by more than half the European Union's 28 member states.

The MiFID II rules, bearing a name only a finance professor could love, will have broad impact on how stocks, bonds and investments are traded.