Mind the Gap. UK Facilities Agent Services and TPR Notification The UK is today still fictitiously part of the EU during what is defined, in Brexit jargon, Transition Period. With no hopes for the Transition Period to be extended beyond the original 31st December 2020 deadline, fund managers have still the choice to use the…
First Steps to ESG Integration More than a decade from a very hard financial crisis, largely created as we know it by exclusive short-term focus on earnings and profits, we are now witnessing a radical paradigm shift in the world of investing. Starting with the asset owners at the top of the investment chain, there…
The challenges of the S in ESG investing ESG stands for Environmental, Social and Governance and is one of the hottest acronyms in the Sustainable Finance ecosystem. Not only in Europe, where it recently received official recognition in the newly established public policy framework on Sustainable Finance, but also on the other side of the…
A primer on developing an ESG Investment Policy Written in collaboration with the experts at InReg The inclusion of Environmental, Social and Governance themes within investment practices and product offering has witnessed significant momentum in the recent past. The coordinated effort to channel resources to sustainable endeavours through finance, both at global and European level,…
Digitalisation in EU Fund Distribution The recent coronavirus outbreak and the ensuing forced digitalisation in the provision of financial services has in our view accelerated a broader digitalisation process already in existence in the EU Fund Distribution ecosystem. A process which was very advanced already in certain parts of the northern hemisphere of Europe, thanking…
AMF Ramps Up Sustainability Disclosures for Funds in France Written in collaboration with the experts at InReg The French Regulator has recently published on its website a recommendation relevant to all the fund managers employing techniques that are non-financial in nature when managing funds offered to non-professional investors in France. The AMF recommendation can be…
EU Disclosure Regulation A regulation on sustainability-related disclosures in the sector of financial services has been published in December 2019 on the Official Journal of the European Union (find a link to the regulation here). Nicknamed already by the industry as the EU Disclosure Regulation, or simply Disclosure Regulation, for it introduces transparency requirements on…
Considerations on Fund Distribution post Brexit The result of the general elections in the United Kingdom put the entire nation on a fast track for Brexit again. Whilst we cannot predict whether there will be a hard Brexit or not, this post aims to recap some of the acquis of the previous years since the…
ESMA MiFID II Compliance Consultation ESMA recently published its Final Report (find it here) following the consultation on the MiFID II compliance function commenced in July 2019. The final version of the guidelines does not significantly diverge from the version contained in the original consultation paper. This particular supervisory convergence exercise resulted in the recent…
ESMA UCITS Performance Fee Consultation ESMA has recently launched a consultation at EU level to develop guidelines on UCITS performance fees. Find a link to the ESMA press release where to find also the initial consultation paper here. The aim of the exercise is to prevent regulatory arbitrage as well as ensure the same level…