The New Regime for PRIIPs KIDs Notification in Italy
***UPDATE:
Consob recently announced that the new procedure for PRIIPs KIDs submission will now entry into force in March 2022. Also, collective investment schemes might benefit from a lighter regime.
Italy is amongst the handful of European member states to have introduced the requirement for notification of KIDs for the PRIIPs marketed locally. This requirement has immediate implications for manufacturers of fund products classified as PRIIPs and marketed locally, due to the fact that PRIIPs KIDs notification in Italy follows a process separate from the marketing authorisation of the foreign EEA PRIIPs fund product. This way, Italy has introduced an additional layer of formalities – and possibly costs – to access its market.
A new regime for PRIIPs KIDs notification has been introduced in Italy at the end of 2020. Product manufacturers will now have to produce to Consob, the Italian regulator, not only the KIDs, but also the structured data related to the specific PRIIPs.
Whilst there will be a transitory regime for 2021, during which product manufacturers might be able to continue with the old regime and provide only the KIDs, as of 2022 the new regime will become mandatory for all PRIIPs marketed in Italy.
Get in touch here with your contacts at Veneziano & Partners to see how we can help with PRIIPs KIDs notification in Italy.
The Old Regime for PRIIPs KIDs Notification in Italy and the Transition Period
Consob had introduced already quite some time ago an electronic portal for the publication of specific documentation related to products offered to the public in Italy. The electronic submission through the so called DEPROF portal superseded the physical submission and stamping of the offering documentation carried out by Consob before UCITS IV came into place. Whilst the portal is already well known and extensively used by fund products manufacturers engaged in the offer of their products in Italy, under the old regime, PRIIPs KIDs notification in Italy was carried out already through a different channel.
Under the old regime, it was required that KIDs were provided by sending them via email to a dedicated Consob email address. One of the nuisances of this process was that the submission was required to be made using the so-called certified email, widely used in Italy in case of formal correspondence, especially with public entities. As part of this process, an email address of the product manufacturer was first to be registered with Consob, by sending an email communication to the dedicated Consob email address. Upon completed registration of the sender email address, the PRIIPs KIDs – in pdf format and named in accordance with a specific naming convention issued by Consob – were required to be provided to Consob one day before commencing the marketing of PRIIPs. Similar notification obligations were imposed in case of amendments to existing documentation.
The new regime for PRIIPs KIDs notification in Italy comes with a new web-portal for the submission of the documentation as well as the requirement to provide structured data related to the PRIIPs along with the KIDs. The new regime also comes with a transition period of one year. For the entire course of 2021, it will be possible for product manufacturers to make available to Consob only the KIDs in pdf format. The submission will have to be made either via email, in accordance to the old regime, or via registration to the new PRIIPs KIDs Consob dedicated portal, where submission is made via a SFTP server or through manual upload.
At any time during the course of 2021, product manufacturers can decide to switch from the email notification to the communication made via the Consob server. As of 2022, there will no longer be the option to provide PRIIPs KIDs via email notification and all product manufacturers will have to have switched to the new Consob web interface for the related communications.
The New Regime and the Structured Data
Consob made available some operating instructions to facilitate the fulfilment of the obligations imposed on product manufacturers under the new regime for PRIIPs KIDs notification in Italy. Below we have summarised the main steps involved in the process.
Identification of product manufacturer and contact persons |
Made through a form to be submitted via email to Consob, which should contain the details of the product manufacturer. Given the possibility to delegate the submission also to third parties (only one third party at a time) the same form and process is also used in case of initial/subsequent delegations.The form will have to be submitted ten days in advance of commencing the marketing of the PRIIPs in case of product manufacturers which didn’t use the old regime before (these become fifteen in case of submission made through delegated third parties).For product manufacturers which used the old regime, the form will have to be provided only five days in advance of the update of KIDs for PRIIPs already notified.Check and update of the information provided is required at least yearly with any changes to identifying data already provided to be notified with ten days advance. |
Provision of information for the manufacturing and validation of KIDs |
The process above will allow product manufacturers and their delegates, if any, to receive credentials in order to access the Consob dedicated portal and confirm additional information and data requested by Consob. This confirmation process shall take place five days before commencing marketing of the PRIIPs in Italy. |
How to provide KIDs and structured data |
There will be two ways to provide Consob with the structured data and the KIDs according to the new regime. Upon completion of the above identification process, either product manufacturers or their delegates will receive from Consob via email the credentials required to be able to access the dedicated web-portals.One web portal will be used for the upload via the SFTP server of the structured data, whilst the other will be used for the manual entry of the structured data and KIDs in a special web-interface.For an indication of the type of data required as part of the structure data upload, Consob has made also available an Annex to its operating instructions listing the type of data required for different types of PRIIPs. |