The AIFMD is one of the pillars of EU regulation for investment funds, which will be crucial to the development of the Capital Markets Union (CMU) and the post Covid-19 economic recovery in the European Union.
The EU fund product landscape is deep, diverse and dynamic. Since the birth of the UCITS framework in 1985, European institutions have progressively refined it into a global “gold standard”, one that successfully balances strict regulatory requirements with the flexibility required by manager to meet evolving client demands. The successful evolution of UCITS was followed by the creation of alternative investment funds (AIFs) under the 2011 AIFM Directive, adding a second important pillar to EU fund/manager regulation. Building on this second pillar are further ambitious EU fund products, such as EUSEFs, EUVECAs and ELTIFs. EFAMA has helped guide all of these key regulatory developments, informing policymakers and regulators on their main merits and drawbacks, while also keeping a close eye on their respective review initiatives.
EFAMA strongly supports a fundamental review to the ELTIF regime, in view of broadening its eligible investment universe and adapting it to better meet retail investor needs. We are also closely monitoring the review of the AIFM Directive from a product regulation standpoint, including possible spillover effects on the UCITS Directive requirements. Further work involves keeping pace with relevant ESMA initiatives, such as the work around the Common Supervisory Action on costs and fees for UCITS.
The AIFMD is one of the pillars of EU regulation for investment funds, which will be crucial to the development of the Capital Markets Union (CMU) and the post Covid-19 economic recovery in the European Union.
EFAMA firmly supports the Commission’s proposed amend of the ELTIF Regulation, in line with its recently revamped “new” CMU.
We disagree with an extension of its scope to UCITS’ and AIFs’ management companies to the scope of the reporting requirements imposed by MiFIR, Art. 26. This extension would be in breach of the principle of proportionality, as:
EFAMA welcomes the recent statement by Ashley Alder, IOSCO Board Chair, on liquidity risk management for investment funds.
EFAMA recently finalised a Comment Paper in response to the ECBs November 2018 findings around liquidity and counterparty risks in ETFs, included in the ECBs semi-annual Financial Stability Review.
We welcome yesterday's vote by the European Parliament plenary, formally adopting the trilogue agreement on the Commission's initiative to remove cross-border barriers to the distribution of investment funds.
This marks a decisive recognition of the need to postpone the application of the PRIIPs disclosure regime for UCITS by two years, in light of the regime's documented shortcomings. It also allows the European Commission more time to conduct a thorough review of the same within one year.
The Covid-19 pandemic significantly impacted financial markets. Stock markets across the world suffered a steep decline driven by lower economic growth and corporate profits. As anticipated, the crisis caused substantial net outflows from UCITS in March (EUR 313 billion). However, as a percentage of net assets, these outflows were no higher than in October 2008, at the height of the global financial crisis (2.9%).
In 2019, AMIC and EFAMA decided to update their 2016 report “Managing Fund Liquidity Risk in Europe” following important policy and regulatory developments at EU and international levels. The purpose of this updated report is to outline the practical liquidity risk management processes which fund management companies put in place when setting up a fund and implement throughout the life of the fund. Also, the report describes the existing European and international regulatory frameworks in the area of fund liquidity risk management.
The EFAMA Asset Management in Europe report aims at providing facts and figures to gain a better understanding of the role of the European asset management industry. It takes a different approach from that of the other EFAMA research reports, on two grounds. Firstly, this report does not focus exclusively on investment funds, but it also analyses the assets that are managed by asset managers under the form of discretionary mandates. Secondly, the report focuses on the countries where the investment fund assets are managed rather than on the countries in which the funds are domiciled.