For immediate release
EFAMA welcomes the European Commission's CMU Mid-Term Review
Brussels, 8th June 2017: The European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA) welcomed today the European Commissions CMU Mid-Term Review. This follows a consultation to which EFAMA responded.
EFAMA acknowledges that this report comes at a particularly challenging time and agrees that the CMU project is more important than ever.
EFAMA welcomes the quick pace put forward by the European Commission with the imminent legislative proposal on a Pan-European Personal Pension Product (PEPP). EFAMA has been a long-standing proponent of the PEPP as we strongly believe it can make personal pensions more attractive and contribute to the success of Europes Capital Markets Union.
Alexander Schindler, EFAMA President, commented: EU citizens need to be encouraged to start saving more and at anearlier time, and to re-allocate part of their savings towards more market-based financial products. A well-regulated, EU-labelled PEPP would ultimately give people access to low-cost personal pensions and give them the chance to get better returns for their savings.
Equally EFAMA welcomes the choice of new priority initiatives to strengthen the CMU Action Plan. In particular:
Facilitating the cross-border distribution of investment funds, specifically UCITS and AIFs. CMU indeed means tackling remaining barriers to the cross-border distribution of funds, and we welcome the Commissions plans to alleviate existing obstacles for EU fund frameworks. As maintaining legal certainty and stability for market participants remains key in our view, we consider that changes to the existing legislation should be a last-resort means and trust that all non-legislative solutions will be fully explored first.
Strengthening the effectiveness of supervision to accelerate market integration. Supervisory convergence is a core element of the CMU project and integral to removing barriers to cross-border distribution of funds. We reaffirm the important role of the ESAs, whose technical capabilities should avoid any political direction, in ensuring further capital markets integration and building an efficient value chain in the interest of end-investors.
Enhancing the proportionality of rules in terms of providing a more proportionate prudential framework for investment firms. We welcome the calibration of any potential future prudential framework for investment firms in line with the nature of their particular business model.
Finally, we also recognise both the challenge and the priorities that lie behind harnessing the potential of FinTech and sustainable finance. Both are high on EFAMAs agenda and remain long-term workstreams.
Peter De Proft, EFAMA Director General, commented: Asset managers play a key role in the financing and growth of the European economy. The CMU will strengthen this contribution by ensuring the competitiveness of the industry and safeguarding investor protection. We will continue contributing our expertise and vision of how to build an overall asset management framework that ensures an efficient and attractive investment environment.
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For media enquiries, please contact:
Peter De Proft, Director General
Telephone: +32 (0) 2 513 39 69
E-mail: info@efama.org
Notes to editors:
About the European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA)
EFAMA is the representative association for the European investment management industry. EFAMA represents through its 28 member associations and 62 corporate members close to EUR 23 trillion in assets under management of which EUR 14.1 trillion managed by 58,400 investment funds at end 2016. Just over 30,600 of these funds were UCITS (Undertakings for Collective Investments in Transferable Securities) funds, with the remaining 27,800 funds composed of AIFs (Alternative Investment Funds). For more information about EFAMA, please visit www.efama.org
