EFAMA wholeheartedly supports a retail investment strategy that gives EU citizens the necessary tools and the confidence to put their savings to work by investing in capital markets.
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.
EFAMA wholeheartedly supports a retail investment strategy that gives EU citizens the necessary tools and the confidence to put their savings to work by investing in capital markets.
The European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA) has today published its response to the ESMA consultation on the legislative review of the EU Money Market Fund Regulation (MMFR).
EFAMA believes that ESMA’s draft ‘marketing communication’ Guidelines still require important clarifications to ensure full alignment between them and MiFID II’s Commission Delegated Regulation Article 44. This alignment is essential to ensure coherent rules for fund management companies and distributors. Unfortunately, parts of the proposed Guidelines are overly prescriptive and may unintentionally make some marketing materials vaguer or even inconsistent with local MiFID requirements for distributors.
While cognisant of the FSB’s strict timelines in view of upcoming G20 summits, these should not come at the expense of a necessary and more informed debate on the causes at the root of last year’s stresses in global short-term funding markets (STFMs) and on ways to remedy these in the future. In fact, the options presented in the consultation report appear hurried and dismissive of critical facts, calling therefore for a deeper engagement with the global financial and investing community at large.
EFAMA wholeheartedly supports a retail investment strategy that gives EU citizens the necessary tools and the confidence to put their savings to work by investing in capital markets.
EFAMA has released its 2021 industry Fact Book.
The 2021 Fact Book provides an in-depth analysis of trends in the European fund industry, an extensive overview of the regulatory developments across 29 European countries and a wealth of data.
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.