Andreas Stepnitzka, EFAMA Deputy Director, Regulatory Policy, comments:
EFAMA monitors issues surrounding fund distribution and disclosures to investors. These include investor protection and disclosure issues arising from the evolving PRIIPs and MiFID frameworks, the shift towards digital distribution tools, and the continued integration of ESG considerations into fund products.
Andreas Stepnitzka, EFAMA Deputy Director, Regulatory Policy, comments:
EFAMA provided high-level comments to the Commission’s consultation on the potential review of the Directive on Distance Marketing of Consumer Financial Services.
We agree with the Commission’s interpretation that the Directive is seen as a “safety net” for financial services not already subject to product-specific legislation. Fund and asset managers are already subject to various, more stringent and detailed sectoral legislations, such as (but not limited to) UCITS, AIFMD and MiFID as well as the (more recent) Cross-Border Fund Distribution Directives.
The European Commission recently adopted amendments to the Packaged Retail and Insurance-based Investment Products (PRIIPs) Regulation and the Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS) Directive. However, in contrast to earlier plans, the adoption of the revised Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) amending Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/653 has been postponed.
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.
It gives me great pleasure to provide you with an overview of our activities since our Ordinary General Meeting of last year.
In support of our call for additional time to implement the PRIIPs rules, we have produced an infographic that summarises the challenges our members face replacing UCITS KIIDS with PRIIP KIDs. The infographic shows the many entities involved in the process and the steps required to prepare a PRIIP KID. Feel free to make use of this infographic.
"It gives me great pleasure to provide you with an overview of our activities since our Annual General Meeting in Paris last year. While we were very much looking forward to hosting you all in Brussels this week, the current crisis and associated travel restrictions has forced us to improvise and turn our meeting into a virtual AGM.