Asset managers use financial indices and benchmarks when managing portfolios on behalf of their clients. Integrity and accuracy of benchmarks and indices are critical to the pricing of many financial instruments, and therefore play an important role in building confidence in the market and its reflection of the real economy.
EFAMA believes that a balanced and proportionate regulatory framework is needed to efficiently deal with benchmarking risks (such as manipulation and conflicts of interest), without unjustifiably hampering investment opportunities or increasing burden and costs for end-investors.
The proposal by the European Commission to amend the Benchmarks Regulation represents an overall welcome development in this field, seeking to introduce greater proportionality in the regulation of index providers. While we support the spirit of the proposal, EFAMA advocates retaining certain minimum safeguards applicable to non-significant benchmarks for the protection of users and end investors.
EFAMA welcomes the opportunity to respond to the European Commission’s Call for Evidence on the ‘Review of the scope and third-country regime of the Benchmark Regulation.’
Following the EFAMA's partial response to the European Commission's targeted consultation on the regime applicable to the use of benchmarks administered in a third country, we would like to make additional comments on the ongoing review of the regime.
EFAMA (European Fund of Asset Management Associations) and ICSA (International Council of Securities Association) published today a Global Memo on Benchmark Data Costs, identifying the main challenges arising from the increased use of benchmark data over recent decades and the imposition of increasingly complex and ove
EFAMA has reviewed ESMA’s statement “Supervisory work on potential index tracking”, which sets out research to determine whether any indication of closet indexing could be found at EU level. To contribute to the debate on this matter, EFAMA has prepared a paper, which highlights the limits of identifying closet index funds through a statistical analysis, drawing on recently published research papers.
