Naïm Abou-Jaoudé, EFAMA President, comments:
Naïm Abou-Jaoudé, EFAMA President, comments:
Investors, asset managers and civil society organisations call for the prompt implementation of the reform on corporate sustainability reporting and EU standards
The Joint Associations1 welcome clarification from ESMA that national competent authorities are expected not to prioritise supervisory actions in relation to the application of the CSDR buy-in regime.2
The investment industry and policymakers must co-ordinate efforts to promote funded retirement savings and improve financial literacy to ensure that billions of people can live comfortably in their later years and, in the process, ease the fiscal pressure on governments. Financially-literate individuals are more likely to make better-informed financial decisions and to understand the benefits of long-term investments.
EFAMA has today published its latest monthly Investment Fund Industry Fact Sheet, which provides net sales data on UCITS and AIFs for October 2021, at European level and by country of fund domiciliation.
The main developments in October 2021 can be summarised as follows:
With 2021 drawing to a close, we wish you a safe and peaceful festive season. Join us in welcoming 2022 with hope and optimism.
On 1 February, Tanguy van de Werve, EFAMA's Director General has been invited to speak at the ESAs high-level conference on financial education and literacy. He will participate in the panel in a panel on 'Financial education and Capital Market Union' together with: Tatyana Panova, Head of Unit, Capital Market Union unit, European Commission (DG FISMA); Jean-Paul Servais, Chairman of the Belgian Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA) and vice chair of the IOSCO Board, and Aleksandra Mączyńska, Executive Director, Better Finance.
EFAMA has some concerns with ESMA’s clarifications. In the consultation paper (CP), ESMA seems to have a very broad interpretation of the ‘multilateral systems’ definition under MiFID II and states that ‘systems where trading interests can interact but where the execution of transactions is formally undertaken outside the system still qualify as a multilateral system and should be required to seek authorisation’ (paragraph 36).
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:
Article 51(5) of the BMR provides that, unless the Commission has adopted an equivalence decision in relation to a particular third country, a third country administrator has been recognised or a third country benchmark has been endorsed, EU supervised entities may only use a third country benchmark in financial instruments, financial contracts and measurements of the performance of an investment fund that already reference the relevant benchmark prior to 31 December 2021.
EFAMA is grateful for the opportunity to comment on some messages included in the aforementioned roadmap. We believe that these comments should be made clear for all persons interested, especially to those who would like to participate in the upcoming public consultation.
Asset managers represent an important group of benchmark users, either in the case of index funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs) - where benchmarks are used as a target for index tracking funds - or in the case of the evaluation of an active manager’s performance - where the fund performance is measured against a selected index or a set of indices.
EFAMA, the voice of the European investment management industry, believes that, for retail clients, standardised disclosure of information can improve the comparability of financial products that promote environmental and/or social characteristics or have a sustainable objective. It will also contribute to the broader policy objectives of the Sustainable Finance Disclosures Regulation (SFDR) to enhance transparency towards end-investors, hold market participants accountable and fight greenwashing.
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Trends in European investment funds (EFAMA Fact Book 2024 release on 18 JUN 2024)