EFAMA released today a new issue of its Market Insights series titled ‘Sustainable UCITS Bond Funds for a Better Future'. This report highlights the strong demand for UCITS bond funds that apply ESG strategies in their portfolio selection, confirming the growing interest of investors for ESG products. It analyses the investment characteristics of this type of funds and compares their performance and fees with those of traditional bond funds.
The European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA) has published its response to the European Commission’s targeted consultation on the functioning of the EU Money Market Fund Regulation (MMFR).
Net sales of long-term UCITS fell to low levels in February 2022
The European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA) has today published its latest monthly Investment Fund Industry Fact Sheet, which provides net sales data on UCITS and AIFs for February 2022, at European level and by country of fund domiciliation.
We welcome this opportunity to comment on a review of the TV perimeter, and support ESMA’s objective of clarifying when systems and facilities qualify as multilateral.
EFAMA places huge importance on this revision of ESMA’s suitability guidelines, as they spell out in detail how investors can invest in sustainable investment products. If they are well designed, the guidelines have the potential to significantly boost capital flows towards sustainable investments; a goal that the European fund industry strongly supports.
The European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA) welcomes the opportunity to respond to this important review of RTS 153/2013 and accompanying guidelines, in light of the procyclicality witnessed during the peak volatility of the Covid crisis. European CCPs already have standard anti-procyclicality tools in their rulebooks and this did lead to less volatile moves in margin in Europe versus other jurisdictions.
With the release of this proposal, the Commission is replicating the OECD / BEPS Inclusive Framework (OECD) Pillar Two Global Anti-Base Erosion (GloBE) Model Rules that came live in December 2021 and addresses how Member States will implement them in a coherent and consistent way across the EU. The work of the Commission and the alignment with the work of the OECD / BEPS Inclusive Framework are to be welcomed.
EFAMA fully supports the Commission’s initiatives to fight tax avoidance and aggressive tax planning. The work of the technical teams that acknowledged our industry’s special requirements and the proposal of carve-out rules to protect investment structures and end-investors are, to a certain extent, to be welcomed.
EFAMA welcomes the decision of the Commission to review the prospectus regime with the objective to make it easier and simpler for companies generally and in particular SMEs in Europe to access capital markets, to provide all types of issuers with further simplification and flexibity and to ensure adequate information for investors.
EFAMA believes that the general assessment of the characteristics of automated financial advice tools is captured accurately.
The signatories share the following views:
• Securitisation is an important element of well-functioning financial markets. Prudently deployed and sensibly regulated, it can:
o act as a bridge between the banks’ financing and the capital markets;
o enable non-banks to diversify funding sources; and
o provide investors with high quality fixed income securities at attractive yields.
EFAMA is supportive of the general objectives of the PRIIP KID Regulation. We are however concerned about the very limited time that product manufacturers will have between the final technical rules (RTS) and essential guidelines being published and the deadline to produce Key Information Documents (KIDs) from 31 December 2016 onwards. Having provided extensive feedback throughout the ongoing Level-2 work, we seriously doubt there will be enough time for market participants to implement the final rules by the end of this year, as originally foreseen by the co-legislators.
EFAMA welcomes the opportunity to provide the views of the asset management industry to this challenging exercise of assessing the impacts of recent regulatory reforms in the area of financial services.
There are a number of general remarks that we would like to make by way of introduction.
Need for consistency and coordination
After having looked extensively at the Level-2 work done by the ESAs, EFAMA1 comes to the unfortunate conclusion that, due to the very technical nature of the underlying methodologies and calculations, there will not be enough time for market participants to fully implement the PRIIP KID by 31 December 2016.
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