Tags

Insurance (36)
CEIOPS (5)
Eurofi Report 2 Microprudentiel type-docpdf type-doc219.66 Ko calendar-select04-02-2009 id = 4
document Summarized Text :
The establishment of the European Monetary Union (EMU) has led to differentiation between the institutional frameworks for the monetary policy and financial stability within the eurozone. The monetary policy is decided on at eurozone level, while managing financial stability has remained primarily national. Furthermore, not all of the EU’s countries entrust prudential control to their central banks. Neither was the ECB given any direct remits in terms of control when the Maastricht Treaty was adopted; it has only a consultative role.

This structure is geared to financial activities that were primarily carried out on a national basis and the various supervision practices seen at the end of the 1980s. For their part, the successive EU treaties reflect the commitment to maintaining a European construction founded on the political and budgetary independence of the various States. The “no bail out” rule included in the Maastricht Treaty makes this commitment a reality.

tags-label Tags : CEIOPS, CESR, CEBS, Supervision, Burden sharing,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Session 08 Cross-Border Insurance Groups Supervision type-docpdf type-doc165.41 Ko calendar-select09-11-2008 id = 27
document Summarized Text :
Eurofi 2008 - Thursday 11/09/08 Session [8] - CROSS-BORDER INSURANCE GROUPS SUPERVISION: Key features of the Solvency II Directive: College cooperation arrangements, Decision Making Process, Supervisors mandate specificities, CEIOPS role and responsibilities.

The Panel
Moderators: Jacques de Larosière & Daniel Lebègue, Co-Presidents, Eurofi Panellists: Charlie McCreevy, EU Commissioner for Internal Market & Services; Peter Skinner, MEP, Committee on Monetary and Economic Affairs, European Parliament; Thomas Steffen, Chairman, Committee of European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Supervisors (CEIOPS) Denis Duverne, Member of the Management Board, AXA; Thierry Francq, Assistant Secretary Financial Sector, Treasury and Economic Policy Directorate General Finance, French Ministry for the Economy, Finance and Employment;

The Debate
Since the Commission adopted its “ambitious Solvency II proposals for a streamlined system for the supervision of insurance and reinsurance groups” in July last year, discussions had progressed in both the Council and the European Parliament at an impressive pace, said Charlie McCreevy, EU Commissioner for Internal Market & Services.
“The number of issues remaining has been reduced to a manageable amount, and I am confident that appropriate solutions will be found over the coming months,” he added. Discussions were also very advanced in the European Parliament, with more than 820 draft amendments tabled before the summer. “All this has opened promising perspectives for the French Presidency, which has the challenging task of concluding the discussions with the Council and Parliament.”

tags-label Tags : CEIOPS, Solvency II directive,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Session 12A SOLVENCY II type-docpdf type-doc238.46 Ko calendar-select09-11-2008 id = 32
document Summarized Text :
Eurofi 2008 - Thursday 11/09/08 Session [12A] - SOLVENCY II: QIS4 early feed back from the industry; Group support and diversification effects management, level 2 terms of reference.

The Panel
Moderator: Karel van Hulle, Head of Unit, Insurance and Pensions, DG Internal Market and Services, European Commission Panelists: Henri de Castries, Chief Executive Officer & Chairman of the Management Board, Axa Group; Peter Skinner, MEP, Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, European Parliament; Gérard de La Martinière, Vice-President, European Insurance and Reinsurance Association (CEA) and Chairman, French Insurance Association (FFSA) Asmo Kalpala, Chairman & President, Tapiola Group and President, Association Internationale des Sociétés d’Assurances Mutuelles (AMICE); Tommy Persson, President, European Insurance and Reinsurance Association (CEA) and President. Länsförsäkringar AB

The Debate
The current system of regulation for the insurance industry was 30 years old and it lacked risk sensitivity, did not allow accurate and timely supervision and did not facilitate optimum allocation of capital, said Karel van Hulle, Head of Unit, Insurance and Pensions, DG Internal Market and Services, European Commission, introducing the session. In addition, there was a lack of convergence of supervisory groups, which led to sub-optimal supervision. “There are four principal objectives of Solvency II,” Mr van Hulle said. • Deepen the Single Market • Enhance policyholder protection • Improve (international) competitiveness of EU insurers • Further Better Regulation Some outstanding issues remained to be resolved, such as surplus funds, equity risk, MCR, whether Solvency II should apply to pension funds, group support regimes, mutuals and exclusions, he added.

tags-label Tags : CEIOPS, Occupational Pensions, Mutual groups, Solvency II directive, Pension funds,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
EUROFI PRIORITIES FOR ECOFIN type-docpdf type-doc115.97 Ko calendar-select10-09-2008 id = 37
document Summarized Text :
Eurofi, the dedicated think-tank for the integration of financial services in Europe, is organizing a conference on September 11 and 12 to discuss the proposals put forward by the financial industry at the ECOFIN, set against a global crisis with leaders facing new challenges.

This crisis shows that the supervision of cross-border financial groups must be adapted in order to factor in the rapid spillover of risks, the internationalization of their activities and the centralized organization of their financial management and strategy.
That is why Eurofi is proposing a series of pragmatic measures to improve the supervision of these groups and the prevention of crises, notably including:
- The establishment of colleges grouping the European supervisors concerned together, which would be given a similar mandate in order to ensure identical protection for all of the group’s European customers;
- A specific role entrusted to the supervisor from the home European country, ensuring that decisions relating to capital requirements and the organization of supervision can be taken quickly and effectively, and that information is immediately made available to all the other supervisors;
- The mission entrusted to the European supervisor committees (CEBS and CEIOPS), to facilitate the resolution of possible differences of views between supervisors from a given college and check that the conditions for fair competition between the financial institutions are brought about.

tags-label Tags : CEIOPS, Occupational Pensions, Solvency II directive, Microcredit, UCITS Directive, Management company, UCITS, Cross-border fund processing, Prudential rules, Accounting rules, CEBS, Regulation, Supervision,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Supervision [EN] type-docpdf type-doc277.17 Ko calendar-select04-12-2007 id = 84
document Summarized Text :
3 and 4 December 2007

Eurofi -11 bis rue Mansart -75.009 Paris Website: www.eurofi.net

Banking and UROFI Finance in Europe Speeding up integration of prudential regulation and supervision of crossborder financial groups Eurofi’s proposals to effectively take into account the needs of financial institutions, member states and their supervisors This note focuses solely on prudential regulation and supervision of institutions and not on the regulation of markets and products. Indeed, market places in Europe are in competition in markets activities that are nowadays global and this makes harmonisation of their regulation more difficult. Wide variation in consumer behaviour and in consumer protection legislation also makes harmonisation of national legislation regarding products and services much more complicated. On the other hand, financial stability, in a context in which players have become globalised, is certainly a subject of general interest for member states. It can assist in avoiding financial difficulties for the players, in increasing cooperation between national authorities, in reducing the cost of any catastrophes that might arise and in optimising pricing of financial services.

1. Rapidly increasing internationalisation of financial activities requires integration at European level of prudential regulation and supervision of cross border financial players.
• Several tens of European financial market players (in insurance and banking)1 now have a very significant level of cross-border activities.
• The characteristic feature of these players is that their functioning is closely integrated and centralised, both from a commercial point of view and in relation with risk and to funds1.
• In each national market of the EU, domestic and multinational institutions are in competition: prudential regulation and supervisory practices must not be responsible for unfair competition.
• Supervision of a cross-border group must be supported by a fully-integrated, global view of liquidity, solvency and the risks taken by that group, so that such supervision can:

o ensure that the conditions required for financial stability are put in place,
o be efficient without having any undesirable effects on pricing of financial services are in place Ideally, these groups, which are able to facilitate cross border spill over of risks, ought to be regulated and supervised on a worldwide basis. For obvious political reasons, that is not possible. Europe, on the other hand, ought to demonstrate its ability to adapt its prudential regulation and supervision to these requirements, since today they are still too fragmented on a national basis.

1 In his speech of 9 May 2007 at the CEBS conference in London, Jean-Claude Trichet pointed out that “the mapping exercise of European groups with a significant level of cross-border activity carried out by the ECB shows that these groups, numbering 46 in 2005, have assets growing by more than 50% between 2001 and 2005 and that they represent almost 70% of the totality of European banking assets! What is more, 16 of these groups hold more than 25% of their assets outside their European country of origin, account for more than one-third of European banking assets and are present in almost half of the countries of the EU!”

1 As a result of the centralisation of management of the groups, subsidiary companies are progressively ceasing to be fully independent or autonomous financial entities. Cross-border financial groups organise their accounting, processing and monitoring of risks, activity-by-activity, without any link with the judicial forms prevailing in their location. In any case, aside from a limited number of “joint-ventures”, these establishments adopt the form of branches or wholly-owned subsidiaries. Undertakings given or received are centralised in terms of activities paid for in exchange; essentially liquid funds (in the main currencies: dollar, euro, yen) are brought together then managed on a worldwide basis, moving from one financial centre to another depending on time-zones. Such...

tags-label Tags : CEIOPS, Regulatory capital, Regulation, Supervision,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Occupational Pensions (3)
Session 12A SOLVENCY II type-docpdf type-doc238.46 Ko calendar-select09-11-2008 id = 32
document Summarized Text :
Eurofi 2008 - Thursday 11/09/08 Session [12A] - SOLVENCY II: QIS4 early feed back from the industry; Group support and diversification effects management, level 2 terms of reference.

The Panel
Moderator: Karel van Hulle, Head of Unit, Insurance and Pensions, DG Internal Market and Services, European Commission Panelists: Henri de Castries, Chief Executive Officer & Chairman of the Management Board, Axa Group; Peter Skinner, MEP, Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, European Parliament; Gérard de La Martinière, Vice-President, European Insurance and Reinsurance Association (CEA) and Chairman, French Insurance Association (FFSA) Asmo Kalpala, Chairman & President, Tapiola Group and President, Association Internationale des Sociétés d’Assurances Mutuelles (AMICE); Tommy Persson, President, European Insurance and Reinsurance Association (CEA) and President. Länsförsäkringar AB

The Debate
The current system of regulation for the insurance industry was 30 years old and it lacked risk sensitivity, did not allow accurate and timely supervision and did not facilitate optimum allocation of capital, said Karel van Hulle, Head of Unit, Insurance and Pensions, DG Internal Market and Services, European Commission, introducing the session. In addition, there was a lack of convergence of supervisory groups, which led to sub-optimal supervision. “There are four principal objectives of Solvency II,” Mr van Hulle said. • Deepen the Single Market • Enhance policyholder protection • Improve (international) competitiveness of EU insurers • Further Better Regulation Some outstanding issues remained to be resolved, such as surplus funds, equity risk, MCR, whether Solvency II should apply to pension funds, group support regimes, mutuals and exclusions, he added.

tags-label Tags : CEIOPS, Occupational Pensions, Mutual groups, Solvency II directive, Pension funds,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Conditions adoption Solvency II type-docpdf type-doc122.69 Ko calendar-select11-09-2008 id = 40
document Summarized Text :
The adoption of the proposed Solvency directive is coming up against several difficulties: the treatment of surplus funds, pension funds and equities, as well as the organization of supervision for cross-border insurance groups. However, pragmatic solutions delivering responses to the legitimate expectations of the insurance industry’s various players, Member States and their supervisors are within reach. The economic approach for risks underpinning Solvency II requires certain clarifications. The exclusion of pension funds from the scope of the directive is causing problems. Faced with the same need to cover their retirement, Europeans, whether they take out life insurance or sign up for pension funds, would have two different levels of security, which they will not be able to perceive. At the same time, this differentiated prudential treatment would lead to a distortion of competition between these two industries. Hence, similar risks should be subjected to the same prudential treatment.

This principle could be implemented within the framework of the next revision of the IORP directive governing pension funds. As of today, it seems important to ensure that a revision of the IORP directive will be carried out based on economic principles that are consistent with those underpinning Solvency II.

tags-label Tags : Solvency II directive, Occupational Pensions, Pension funds,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
EUROFI PRIORITIES FOR ECOFIN type-docpdf type-doc115.97 Ko calendar-select10-09-2008 id = 37
document Summarized Text :
Eurofi, the dedicated think-tank for the integration of financial services in Europe, is organizing a conference on September 11 and 12 to discuss the proposals put forward by the financial industry at the ECOFIN, set against a global crisis with leaders facing new challenges.

This crisis shows that the supervision of cross-border financial groups must be adapted in order to factor in the rapid spillover of risks, the internationalization of their activities and the centralized organization of their financial management and strategy.
That is why Eurofi is proposing a series of pragmatic measures to improve the supervision of these groups and the prevention of crises, notably including:
- The establishment of colleges grouping the European supervisors concerned together, which would be given a similar mandate in order to ensure identical protection for all of the group’s European customers;
- A specific role entrusted to the supervisor from the home European country, ensuring that decisions relating to capital requirements and the organization of supervision can be taken quickly and effectively, and that information is immediately made available to all the other supervisors;
- The mission entrusted to the European supervisor committees (CEBS and CEIOPS), to facilitate the resolution of possible differences of views between supervisors from a given college and check that the conditions for fair competition between the financial institutions are brought about.

tags-label Tags : CEIOPS, Occupational Pensions, Solvency II directive, Microcredit, UCITS Directive, Management company, UCITS, Cross-border fund processing, Prudential rules, Accounting rules, CEBS, Regulation, Supervision,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Consumers protection (2)
Session 02 Key Issues for the Financial Industry type-docpdf type-doc264.49 Ko calendar-select09-11-2008 id = 13
document Summarized Text :
Eurofi 2008 - Thursday 11/09/08 Session [2] - Plenary: KEY ISSUES FOR THE FINANCIAL SERVICES INDUSTRY IN TODAY’S CONTEXT The Panel Opening remarks: Didier Cahen; Secretary General, Eurofi Moderators: Jacques de Larosière & Daniel Lebègue; Co-Presidents, Eurofi Panelists: Pervenche Bérès, MEP, Chairwoman, Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, European Parliament; Meglena Kuneva, EU Commissioner for Consumer Protection; David Vegara, President of the Financial Services Committee, Spanish Secretary of State for Economic Affairs. Karl-Peter Schackman Fallis, Executive Member of the Board, German Savings Banks Association; Georges Pauget, Chief Executive Officer, Credit Agricole SA; Edmond Alphandery, Chairman of the board of CNP Assurance

tags-label Tags : Consumers protection,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Consumer protection [EN] type-docpdf type-doc221.82 Ko calendar-select06-06-2006 id = 98
document Summarized Text :
Consumer protection workshop
Executive summary:
There is at present a patchwork of national consumer protection regimes for consumer credit in particular that creates specific legal conditions for operating in each European market.
This situation is considered by most multinational or global players to hinder their ability to sell similar products across Europe and therefore to obtain economies of scale and is rarely justified by very specific consumer needs.

The current attempts to harmonise European legislation related to consumer protection can be considered as steps in the right direction but have not been sufficient yet to develop an integrated market, as they still allow for major divergences between legislations.

Targeted full harmonisation (ie full harmonisation of the main dispositions that are necessary to guarantee an adequate level of consumer protection adapted to the average needs of EU consumers while enabling the industry to develop synergies and cross-border business) appears to be an adequate solution for many industry players and observers in particular for consumer credit, mortgages and savings. However the scope of topics selected for harmonisation and the degree of precision required for harmonising dispositions on these topics needs to be determined on a case-by-case basis. Further harmonisation of EU consumer protection laws would benefit consumers in several ways:
- Industry players would be able to increase synergies leading to potential economies of scale and price reductions
- Foreign players would be able to access new markets completing the range of local products and increasing competition which could put pressure on prices.

As an example, industry players consider that the modified version of the consumer credit directive goes in the right direction of focused harmonisation identifying 7 main themes to be harmonized:
- Advertising
- Pre-contractual information
- Contractual information
- Definition and calculation of interest rates
- Right of withdrawal
- Linked credits
- Early repayment
Full harmonisation would require the directive to be more precise on certain topics and to modify a certain number of dispositions of the present proposal on these 7 themes taking into account the constraints and needs of financial institutions and distributors...

tags-label Tags : Consumers protection,
tags-label Type : Executive summary
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Procyclicality (1)
Session 06 Learning from the Financial Crisis type-docpdf type-doc260.58 Ko calendar-select09-11-2008 id = 25
document Summarized Text :
Eurofi 2008 - Thursday 11/09/08 Session [6] - LEARNING FROM THE FINANCIAL CRISIS: KEY DRIVERS AND EU INSTITUTIONS INITIATIVES for reducing procyclical effects; For an effective surveillance of off-balance sheet risks; For an appropriate setting of the banks’ amount of prudential own funds; For providing reliable information to investors (rating agencies, market information…)

The Panel
Moderator: Jacques de Larosière, Co-President, Eurofi Panellists: Joaquín Almunia, EU Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs Fernando Teixeira dos Santos, Portuguese Minister of State and for Finance Dominique Hoenn, Senior Adviser, BNP Paribas Daniel Daianu, MEP, Committee on Budgets, European Parliament Deven Sharma, President, Standard & Poor’s Nout Wellink, Governor, De Nederlandsche Bank and Chairman of the Basel Committee Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, Former Italian Minister of the Economy and Finance

The Debate
Joaquín Almunia, EU Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs said the main question was how to restore stability in our economies after more than one year of turmoil. “This turmoil has posed serious challenges to the financial industry and our economies. The experience has been instructive, but after more than one year of turbulence, we now have to turn lessons into action.” The European Union had not been passive. It acted quickly last autumn, adopting a road map of policy actions covering transparency, valuations, supervision and market function, including the regulatory system.

tags-label Tags : Procyclicality, Transparency, Rating agencies, Hedge funds, Prudential rules, Crisis,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Mutual insurance companies (4)
Session 11A Future Outlook For EU Mutual Insurance Groups type-docpdf type-doc165.62 Ko calendar-select09-11-2008 id = 28
document Summarized Text :
Eurofi 2008 - Thursday 11/09/08 Session [11A] - FUTURE OUTLOOK FOR EU MUTUAL INSURANCE GROUPS

The Panel
Moderator: Jean-Jacques Bonnaud, Eurofi, Former CEO of the GAN Panellists: Asmo Kalpala, Chairman & President, Tapiola Group and President, Association Internationale des Sociétés d’Assurances Mutuelles (Amice) Jeanne-Marie Camboly, Director of Parliamentary and Professional External Relations, Groupama, France and Co- Chair of the European Mutual Society Task Force at Amice Robert Lilli, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Köbe Fabrice Pesin, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Insurance Division, Treasury, French Ministry for the Economy, Finance and Employment Bernard Thiry, Director of International Relations, Ethias Jean-Luc de Boissieu, Director General, Gema Ieke van Den Burg, MEP, Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, European Parliament

The Debate
Jean-Jacques Bonnaud, Eurofi, said the last meeting of Eurofi at the December 2007 conference in Brussels had highlighted the gap between the economic importance of mutual insurers in Europe, which amounted for 20-40 per cent of the sector in many European countries, and EU legislation. So the session was designed to bring out the issues the sector faced, and discuss whether consumers were disadvantaged as a result. Asmo Kalpala, Chairman & President, Tapiola Group and President, Association Internationale des Sociétés d’Assurances Mutuelles (Amice), said that while financial markets had fostered global growth, they had also accumulated uncertainty and large-scale risks.
Operations based solely on the efficient allocation of capital with the goal of profit maximisation, neglecting wider social responsibility, had led to “morally risky” behaviour. Closer regulation, and better consumer education were priorities. Ownership structures were also important.

tags-label Tags : Mutual insurance companies, Mutual groups, Solvency II directive,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Outlook Mutuals Insurance Groups type-docpdf type-doc130.04 Ko calendar-select10-09-2008 id = 45
document Summarized Text :
Amendments to the group definition of Solvency II and additions to the EU legislation on mutuals are asked by insurance mutuals to help them face up to their fast-changing environment in Europe. Insurance mutuals or assimilated organisations represent 25% of the total insurance premiums paid in the EU and 26 of the Top 100 EU insurance companies are mutual while 4 are controlled by mutual holdings. They have a 20 to 40% market share in 7 EU countries (ie Finland, Sweden, France, Germany, Spain, Belgium and Denmark).
Insurance mutuals consider their statute offers advantages in terms of client relationship, governance and pricing flexibility as mutuals are less exposed to short term financial pressures than plcs, which have to take into account the interests of their shareholders as well as their clients.

Insurance mutuals are facing many market and regulatory challenges at present:
- Growth challenges: need for large mutuals or mutuals focused on specific business or customer segments to find new growth opportunities outside of their domestic markets, which are mature and where the product diversification potential has already been leveraged to a great extent
- Efficiency challenges: large mutuals need to improve efficiency continuously to face up to the competition from consolidated plc groups; the Solvency II reform will increase the need for insurance mutuals to regroup to face up to solvency requirements, increase diversification and increase their buying power in financial markets
- Market positioning challenges: mutuals players are seeking to preserve their differentiation through specific customer relationships, offering and image.

tags-label Tags : Mutual insurance companies, Mutual groups, Solvency II directive,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Solvency II introductory note type-docpdf type-doc139.2 Ko calendar-select03-12-2007 id = 97
document Summarized Text :
Solvency II

– Introductory Note EUROFI CONFERENCE– 3/4 December 2007, European Parliament

With the new Solvency II directive currently going through the adoption process, the insurance world is about to experience a major shift in its regulatory landscape. Notable features of this reform include:
• adopting an economic approach for assessing insurance companies’ solvency;
• setting an explicit solvency level (probability of an insurance company defaulting set at 1 in 200 over one year) intended to balance sufficient protection of insured parties, reasonable product prices and strengthened competitiveness for European insurers in a global economy;
• taking financial innovations into account;
• promoting best risk management practices within the profession;
• consolidating the role of insurers as institutional investors for the long-term financing of the European economy.

This reform, according to the Lamfalussy process, has undergone technical preparations in which the supervisors of member states have been heavily involved. There is a risk that technical considerations might push the political aims into second place. That is why, from level 1 of the Lamfalussy procedure, the institutional work linked to Solvency 2 must qualify certain key points. These include, in particular:
• the appropriateness of the calibration of the standard model for assessing risks in relation to the level of confidence set by the directive;
• the provisions for dealing with equities, which must protect the role of insurers involved in long-term financing of the economy under good prudential conditions;
• the procedures for supervision of insurance groups, which must recognise the benefits arising from either geographical or economic sector risk diversification;
• taking into account the specificities of mutual insurance companies’ own-funds and the specific contractual links on the basis of which mutual insurance groups are often constituted;
• guaranteeing fair competition between the insurance company and pension funds in respect of products which meet the same consumer requirements. In addition, measures for implementation (level 2) must not be allowed to downgrade or limit level I provisions that aim at maximum harmonisation. It would therefore also seem to be essential for the text of the directive to emphasise certain principles for application that would include:
• explicit outlawing of all national options (there are, at present, 101 options within the Capital Requirement Directive! - CRD) and all national add-ons;
• regulatory recognition of the guarantee provided by cross-border groups for their subsidiaries, as compensation for local reduced capital requirements. This reduction is a concrete reflection of the benefits that arise from diversification of risks, especially in geographical terms;
• implementation of consolidated supervision for pan-European groups, based on identification of solvency requirements (SCR – Solvency Capital Requirement) at group level; Finally, it is important to ensure or to check that implementation procedures have been devised in line with the political guidelines of the directive by means of:
• the obligation placed on national regulators to justify in advance any request for an “add-on” which would also have to be authorised by the college of supervisors of the...

tags-label Tags : Mutual insurance companies, Mutual groups, Solvency II directive,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Eurofi Mutuals Executive summary [EN] type-docpdf type-doc507.7 Ko calendar-select03-12-2007 id = 94
document Summarized Text :
The outlook for EU insurance mutuals in the fast-changing EU marketplace

Eurofi conference: 3 December 2007 EU Parliament

Executive summary
This document was prepared by Eurofi as an introductory document for the workshop of December 3rd, with the input of the British Building Societies Association, Ethias, Gothaer Group, MACIF, MAIF, Mutualité Française, NFU Mutual, Tapiola and Professor E. Greppi.

1. Context:
Mutual companies have a specific legal statute and specific governance arrangements.
• Mutual companies have no share capital and therefore no shareholders
• They are initially set up and controlled by their customers (their “members”) who have voting rights1 and can be involved to a certain extent in the governance of the company and in decisions made2. Solidarity links exist between members: supplementary calls, possible rebates... What makes mutuals different from plc or cooperative companies is their legal statute and governance arrangements and not their size:
• Most of them are for-profit companies and insurance mutuals of all sizes exist in Europe as for plcs: from a few million Euros annual premiums written to several billion. In the Top 100 EU insurance companies, 26 are mutuals and 4 are controlled by mutual holdings3.
• Most large mutuals cover all insurance markets (P&C4, health, life insurance) and serve all customers far beyond their initial member base5. Smaller mutuals are usually still focused on a specific client or product segment or on a region6.
• Mutuals have access to capital markets: they can issue subordinated debt or hybrid capital eg to finance their development needs
7
1 Equivalent voting rights or weighted rights depending on the company
2 eg by electing representatives who participate in the general meetings and board meetings
3 Examples of mutuals part of the Top 100 EU insurance companies: Groupama N°17 (13,5 Bio € premium), Covea N° 19 (12,0 Bio €), Debeka N° 30 (7,3 Bio €)
Examples of insurers with mutual holding companies part of the Top 100: Talanx / HDI N° 21 (10,2 Bio €), Wiener Staetische N° 36 (5,9 Bio €) Source AISAM (Association Internationale des Sociétés d’Assurance Mutuelle): Gross direct premium written in 2006
4 P&C Property and Casualty insurance covers home, car and other general insurance
5 For example the MAIF in France originally created by a group of school teachers now markets P&C and life insurance to all customers and is the 74th European insurance group with annual gross premium of € 2,6 Bio, but this is only one of the many examples of such developments in the mutual insurance industry
6 This is the same for plcs to a certain extent. According to CEIOPS 4500 insurance companies out of a total of 5300 identified by the CEA (Comité Européen des Assurances) have annual premiums inferior to 10 Mio € (mostly in life insurance) and only 30% of them are mutuals...

tags-label Tags : Mutual insurance companies, Mutual groups, Solvency II directive,
tags-label Type : Executive summary
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Mutual groups (5)
Session 11A Future Outlook For EU Mutual Insurance Groups type-docpdf type-doc165.62 Ko calendar-select09-11-2008 id = 28
document Summarized Text :
Eurofi 2008 - Thursday 11/09/08 Session [11A] - FUTURE OUTLOOK FOR EU MUTUAL INSURANCE GROUPS

The Panel
Moderator: Jean-Jacques Bonnaud, Eurofi, Former CEO of the GAN Panellists: Asmo Kalpala, Chairman & President, Tapiola Group and President, Association Internationale des Sociétés d’Assurances Mutuelles (Amice) Jeanne-Marie Camboly, Director of Parliamentary and Professional External Relations, Groupama, France and Co- Chair of the European Mutual Society Task Force at Amice Robert Lilli, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Köbe Fabrice Pesin, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Insurance Division, Treasury, French Ministry for the Economy, Finance and Employment Bernard Thiry, Director of International Relations, Ethias Jean-Luc de Boissieu, Director General, Gema Ieke van Den Burg, MEP, Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, European Parliament

The Debate
Jean-Jacques Bonnaud, Eurofi, said the last meeting of Eurofi at the December 2007 conference in Brussels had highlighted the gap between the economic importance of mutual insurers in Europe, which amounted for 20-40 per cent of the sector in many European countries, and EU legislation. So the session was designed to bring out the issues the sector faced, and discuss whether consumers were disadvantaged as a result. Asmo Kalpala, Chairman & President, Tapiola Group and President, Association Internationale des Sociétés d’Assurances Mutuelles (Amice), said that while financial markets had fostered global growth, they had also accumulated uncertainty and large-scale risks.
Operations based solely on the efficient allocation of capital with the goal of profit maximisation, neglecting wider social responsibility, had led to “morally risky” behaviour. Closer regulation, and better consumer education were priorities. Ownership structures were also important.

tags-label Tags : Mutual insurance companies, Mutual groups, Solvency II directive,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Session 12A SOLVENCY II type-docpdf type-doc238.46 Ko calendar-select09-11-2008 id = 32
document Summarized Text :
Eurofi 2008 - Thursday 11/09/08 Session [12A] - SOLVENCY II: QIS4 early feed back from the industry; Group support and diversification effects management, level 2 terms of reference.

The Panel
Moderator: Karel van Hulle, Head of Unit, Insurance and Pensions, DG Internal Market and Services, European Commission Panelists: Henri de Castries, Chief Executive Officer & Chairman of the Management Board, Axa Group; Peter Skinner, MEP, Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, European Parliament; Gérard de La Martinière, Vice-President, European Insurance and Reinsurance Association (CEA) and Chairman, French Insurance Association (FFSA) Asmo Kalpala, Chairman & President, Tapiola Group and President, Association Internationale des Sociétés d’Assurances Mutuelles (AMICE); Tommy Persson, President, European Insurance and Reinsurance Association (CEA) and President. Länsförsäkringar AB

The Debate
The current system of regulation for the insurance industry was 30 years old and it lacked risk sensitivity, did not allow accurate and timely supervision and did not facilitate optimum allocation of capital, said Karel van Hulle, Head of Unit, Insurance and Pensions, DG Internal Market and Services, European Commission, introducing the session. In addition, there was a lack of convergence of supervisory groups, which led to sub-optimal supervision. “There are four principal objectives of Solvency II,” Mr van Hulle said. • Deepen the Single Market • Enhance policyholder protection • Improve (international) competitiveness of EU insurers • Further Better Regulation Some outstanding issues remained to be resolved, such as surplus funds, equity risk, MCR, whether Solvency II should apply to pension funds, group support regimes, mutuals and exclusions, he added.

tags-label Tags : CEIOPS, Occupational Pensions, Mutual groups, Solvency II directive, Pension funds,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Outlook Mutuals Insurance Groups type-docpdf type-doc130.04 Ko calendar-select10-09-2008 id = 45
document Summarized Text :
Amendments to the group definition of Solvency II and additions to the EU legislation on mutuals are asked by insurance mutuals to help them face up to their fast-changing environment in Europe. Insurance mutuals or assimilated organisations represent 25% of the total insurance premiums paid in the EU and 26 of the Top 100 EU insurance companies are mutual while 4 are controlled by mutual holdings. They have a 20 to 40% market share in 7 EU countries (ie Finland, Sweden, France, Germany, Spain, Belgium and Denmark).
Insurance mutuals consider their statute offers advantages in terms of client relationship, governance and pricing flexibility as mutuals are less exposed to short term financial pressures than plcs, which have to take into account the interests of their shareholders as well as their clients.

Insurance mutuals are facing many market and regulatory challenges at present:
- Growth challenges: need for large mutuals or mutuals focused on specific business or customer segments to find new growth opportunities outside of their domestic markets, which are mature and where the product diversification potential has already been leveraged to a great extent
- Efficiency challenges: large mutuals need to improve efficiency continuously to face up to the competition from consolidated plc groups; the Solvency II reform will increase the need for insurance mutuals to regroup to face up to solvency requirements, increase diversification and increase their buying power in financial markets
- Market positioning challenges: mutuals players are seeking to preserve their differentiation through specific customer relationships, offering and image.

tags-label Tags : Mutual insurance companies, Mutual groups, Solvency II directive,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Solvency II introductory note type-docpdf type-doc139.2 Ko calendar-select03-12-2007 id = 97
document Summarized Text :
Solvency II

– Introductory Note EUROFI CONFERENCE– 3/4 December 2007, European Parliament

With the new Solvency II directive currently going through the adoption process, the insurance world is about to experience a major shift in its regulatory landscape. Notable features of this reform include:
• adopting an economic approach for assessing insurance companies’ solvency;
• setting an explicit solvency level (probability of an insurance company defaulting set at 1 in 200 over one year) intended to balance sufficient protection of insured parties, reasonable product prices and strengthened competitiveness for European insurers in a global economy;
• taking financial innovations into account;
• promoting best risk management practices within the profession;
• consolidating the role of insurers as institutional investors for the long-term financing of the European economy.

This reform, according to the Lamfalussy process, has undergone technical preparations in which the supervisors of member states have been heavily involved. There is a risk that technical considerations might push the political aims into second place. That is why, from level 1 of the Lamfalussy procedure, the institutional work linked to Solvency 2 must qualify certain key points. These include, in particular:
• the appropriateness of the calibration of the standard model for assessing risks in relation to the level of confidence set by the directive;
• the provisions for dealing with equities, which must protect the role of insurers involved in long-term financing of the economy under good prudential conditions;
• the procedures for supervision of insurance groups, which must recognise the benefits arising from either geographical or economic sector risk diversification;
• taking into account the specificities of mutual insurance companies’ own-funds and the specific contractual links on the basis of which mutual insurance groups are often constituted;
• guaranteeing fair competition between the insurance company and pension funds in respect of products which meet the same consumer requirements. In addition, measures for implementation (level 2) must not be allowed to downgrade or limit level I provisions that aim at maximum harmonisation. It would therefore also seem to be essential for the text of the directive to emphasise certain principles for application that would include:
• explicit outlawing of all national options (there are, at present, 101 options within the Capital Requirement Directive! - CRD) and all national add-ons;
• regulatory recognition of the guarantee provided by cross-border groups for their subsidiaries, as compensation for local reduced capital requirements. This reduction is a concrete reflection of the benefits that arise from diversification of risks, especially in geographical terms;
• implementation of consolidated supervision for pan-European groups, based on identification of solvency requirements (SCR – Solvency Capital Requirement) at group level; Finally, it is important to ensure or to check that implementation procedures have been devised in line with the political guidelines of the directive by means of:
• the obligation placed on national regulators to justify in advance any request for an “add-on” which would also have to be authorised by the college of supervisors of the...

tags-label Tags : Mutual insurance companies, Mutual groups, Solvency II directive,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Eurofi Mutuals Executive summary [EN] type-docpdf type-doc507.7 Ko calendar-select03-12-2007 id = 94
document Summarized Text :
The outlook for EU insurance mutuals in the fast-changing EU marketplace

Eurofi conference: 3 December 2007 EU Parliament

Executive summary
This document was prepared by Eurofi as an introductory document for the workshop of December 3rd, with the input of the British Building Societies Association, Ethias, Gothaer Group, MACIF, MAIF, Mutualité Française, NFU Mutual, Tapiola and Professor E. Greppi.

1. Context:
Mutual companies have a specific legal statute and specific governance arrangements.
• Mutual companies have no share capital and therefore no shareholders
• They are initially set up and controlled by their customers (their “members”) who have voting rights1 and can be involved to a certain extent in the governance of the company and in decisions made2. Solidarity links exist between members: supplementary calls, possible rebates... What makes mutuals different from plc or cooperative companies is their legal statute and governance arrangements and not their size:
• Most of them are for-profit companies and insurance mutuals of all sizes exist in Europe as for plcs: from a few million Euros annual premiums written to several billion. In the Top 100 EU insurance companies, 26 are mutuals and 4 are controlled by mutual holdings3.
• Most large mutuals cover all insurance markets (P&C4, health, life insurance) and serve all customers far beyond their initial member base5. Smaller mutuals are usually still focused on a specific client or product segment or on a region6.
• Mutuals have access to capital markets: they can issue subordinated debt or hybrid capital eg to finance their development needs
7
1 Equivalent voting rights or weighted rights depending on the company
2 eg by electing representatives who participate in the general meetings and board meetings
3 Examples of mutuals part of the Top 100 EU insurance companies: Groupama N°17 (13,5 Bio € premium), Covea N° 19 (12,0 Bio €), Debeka N° 30 (7,3 Bio €)
Examples of insurers with mutual holding companies part of the Top 100: Talanx / HDI N° 21 (10,2 Bio €), Wiener Staetische N° 36 (5,9 Bio €) Source AISAM (Association Internationale des Sociétés d’Assurance Mutuelle): Gross direct premium written in 2006
4 P&C Property and Casualty insurance covers home, car and other general insurance
5 For example the MAIF in France originally created by a group of school teachers now markets P&C and life insurance to all customers and is the 74th European insurance group with annual gross premium of € 2,6 Bio, but this is only one of the many examples of such developments in the mutual insurance industry
6 This is the same for plcs to a certain extent. According to CEIOPS 4500 insurance companies out of a total of 5300 identified by the CEA (Comité Européen des Assurances) have annual premiums inferior to 10 Mio € (mostly in life insurance) and only 30% of them are mutuals...

tags-label Tags : Mutual insurance companies, Mutual groups, Solvency II directive,
tags-label Type : Executive summary
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Solvency II directive (9)
Session 05A For an Effective Supervision type-docpdf type-doc200.44 Ko calendar-select09-11-2008 id = 22
document Summarized Text :
Eurofi 2008 - Thursday 11/09/08 Session [5A] - FOR AN EFFECTIVE SUPERVISION FOR CROSS-BORDER FINANCIAL GROUPS: Foundations and content for a European agreement

The Panel
Moderator: Jacques de Larosière, Co-President, Eurofi Panellists: Joaquín Almunia, EU Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs; Pervenche Berès, MEP, Chairwoman, Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, European Parliament; Baron Alexandre Lamfalussy; Jacques Maire, Senior Vice-President, Head of European & Public Affairs, AXA Group; Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, Former Italian Minister of the Economy and Finance; Xavier Musca, Director General of the Treasury, French Ministry for the Economy, Finance and Employment;

The Debate
The current economic climate was very difficult, and it had not changed in the way that had been hoped, said Joaquín Almunia, EU Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs. “A strong and stable financial system is a precondition for a strong and stable economy – that is something we are reminded of every day, particularly since the crisis broke in August last year. In the present circumstances, protecting financial stability is a major priority.”

tags-label Tags : Solvency II directive, Regulation, Supervision,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Session 08 Cross-Border Insurance Groups Supervision type-docpdf type-doc165.41 Ko calendar-select09-11-2008 id = 27
document Summarized Text :
Eurofi 2008 - Thursday 11/09/08 Session [8] - CROSS-BORDER INSURANCE GROUPS SUPERVISION: Key features of the Solvency II Directive: College cooperation arrangements, Decision Making Process, Supervisors mandate specificities, CEIOPS role and responsibilities.

The Panel
Moderators: Jacques de Larosière & Daniel Lebègue, Co-Presidents, Eurofi Panellists: Charlie McCreevy, EU Commissioner for Internal Market & Services; Peter Skinner, MEP, Committee on Monetary and Economic Affairs, European Parliament; Thomas Steffen, Chairman, Committee of European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Supervisors (CEIOPS) Denis Duverne, Member of the Management Board, AXA; Thierry Francq, Assistant Secretary Financial Sector, Treasury and Economic Policy Directorate General Finance, French Ministry for the Economy, Finance and Employment;

The Debate
Since the Commission adopted its “ambitious Solvency II proposals for a streamlined system for the supervision of insurance and reinsurance groups” in July last year, discussions had progressed in both the Council and the European Parliament at an impressive pace, said Charlie McCreevy, EU Commissioner for Internal Market & Services.
“The number of issues remaining has been reduced to a manageable amount, and I am confident that appropriate solutions will be found over the coming months,” he added. Discussions were also very advanced in the European Parliament, with more than 820 draft amendments tabled before the summer. “All this has opened promising perspectives for the French Presidency, which has the challenging task of concluding the discussions with the Council and Parliament.”

tags-label Tags : CEIOPS, Solvency II directive,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Session 11A Future Outlook For EU Mutual Insurance Groups type-docpdf type-doc165.62 Ko calendar-select09-11-2008 id = 28
document Summarized Text :
Eurofi 2008 - Thursday 11/09/08 Session [11A] - FUTURE OUTLOOK FOR EU MUTUAL INSURANCE GROUPS

The Panel
Moderator: Jean-Jacques Bonnaud, Eurofi, Former CEO of the GAN Panellists: Asmo Kalpala, Chairman & President, Tapiola Group and President, Association Internationale des Sociétés d’Assurances Mutuelles (Amice) Jeanne-Marie Camboly, Director of Parliamentary and Professional External Relations, Groupama, France and Co- Chair of the European Mutual Society Task Force at Amice Robert Lilli, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Köbe Fabrice Pesin, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Insurance Division, Treasury, French Ministry for the Economy, Finance and Employment Bernard Thiry, Director of International Relations, Ethias Jean-Luc de Boissieu, Director General, Gema Ieke van Den Burg, MEP, Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, European Parliament

The Debate
Jean-Jacques Bonnaud, Eurofi, said the last meeting of Eurofi at the December 2007 conference in Brussels had highlighted the gap between the economic importance of mutual insurers in Europe, which amounted for 20-40 per cent of the sector in many European countries, and EU legislation. So the session was designed to bring out the issues the sector faced, and discuss whether consumers were disadvantaged as a result. Asmo Kalpala, Chairman & President, Tapiola Group and President, Association Internationale des Sociétés d’Assurances Mutuelles (Amice), said that while financial markets had fostered global growth, they had also accumulated uncertainty and large-scale risks.
Operations based solely on the efficient allocation of capital with the goal of profit maximisation, neglecting wider social responsibility, had led to “morally risky” behaviour. Closer regulation, and better consumer education were priorities. Ownership structures were also important.

tags-label Tags : Mutual insurance companies, Mutual groups, Solvency II directive,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Session 12A SOLVENCY II type-docpdf type-doc238.46 Ko calendar-select09-11-2008 id = 32
document Summarized Text :
Eurofi 2008 - Thursday 11/09/08 Session [12A] - SOLVENCY II: QIS4 early feed back from the industry; Group support and diversification effects management, level 2 terms of reference.

The Panel
Moderator: Karel van Hulle, Head of Unit, Insurance and Pensions, DG Internal Market and Services, European Commission Panelists: Henri de Castries, Chief Executive Officer & Chairman of the Management Board, Axa Group; Peter Skinner, MEP, Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, European Parliament; Gérard de La Martinière, Vice-President, European Insurance and Reinsurance Association (CEA) and Chairman, French Insurance Association (FFSA) Asmo Kalpala, Chairman & President, Tapiola Group and President, Association Internationale des Sociétés d’Assurances Mutuelles (AMICE); Tommy Persson, President, European Insurance and Reinsurance Association (CEA) and President. Länsförsäkringar AB

The Debate
The current system of regulation for the insurance industry was 30 years old and it lacked risk sensitivity, did not allow accurate and timely supervision and did not facilitate optimum allocation of capital, said Karel van Hulle, Head of Unit, Insurance and Pensions, DG Internal Market and Services, European Commission, introducing the session. In addition, there was a lack of convergence of supervisory groups, which led to sub-optimal supervision. “There are four principal objectives of Solvency II,” Mr van Hulle said. • Deepen the Single Market • Enhance policyholder protection • Improve (international) competitiveness of EU insurers • Further Better Regulation Some outstanding issues remained to be resolved, such as surplus funds, equity risk, MCR, whether Solvency II should apply to pension funds, group support regimes, mutuals and exclusions, he added.

tags-label Tags : CEIOPS, Occupational Pensions, Mutual groups, Solvency II directive, Pension funds,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Conditions adoption Solvency II type-docpdf type-doc122.69 Ko calendar-select11-09-2008 id = 40
document Summarized Text :
The adoption of the proposed Solvency directive is coming up against several difficulties: the treatment of surplus funds, pension funds and equities, as well as the organization of supervision for cross-border insurance groups. However, pragmatic solutions delivering responses to the legitimate expectations of the insurance industry’s various players, Member States and their supervisors are within reach. The economic approach for risks underpinning Solvency II requires certain clarifications. The exclusion of pension funds from the scope of the directive is causing problems. Faced with the same need to cover their retirement, Europeans, whether they take out life insurance or sign up for pension funds, would have two different levels of security, which they will not be able to perceive. At the same time, this differentiated prudential treatment would lead to a distortion of competition between these two industries. Hence, similar risks should be subjected to the same prudential treatment.

This principle could be implemented within the framework of the next revision of the IORP directive governing pension funds. As of today, it seems important to ensure that a revision of the IORP directive will be carried out based on economic principles that are consistent with those underpinning Solvency II.

tags-label Tags : Solvency II directive, Occupational Pensions, Pension funds,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
EUROFI PRIORITIES FOR ECOFIN type-docpdf type-doc115.97 Ko calendar-select10-09-2008 id = 37
document Summarized Text :
Eurofi, the dedicated think-tank for the integration of financial services in Europe, is organizing a conference on September 11 and 12 to discuss the proposals put forward by the financial industry at the ECOFIN, set against a global crisis with leaders facing new challenges.

This crisis shows that the supervision of cross-border financial groups must be adapted in order to factor in the rapid spillover of risks, the internationalization of their activities and the centralized organization of their financial management and strategy.
That is why Eurofi is proposing a series of pragmatic measures to improve the supervision of these groups and the prevention of crises, notably including:
- The establishment of colleges grouping the European supervisors concerned together, which would be given a similar mandate in order to ensure identical protection for all of the group’s European customers;
- A specific role entrusted to the supervisor from the home European country, ensuring that decisions relating to capital requirements and the organization of supervision can be taken quickly and effectively, and that information is immediately made available to all the other supervisors;
- The mission entrusted to the European supervisor committees (CEBS and CEIOPS), to facilitate the resolution of possible differences of views between supervisors from a given college and check that the conditions for fair competition between the financial institutions are brought about.

tags-label Tags : CEIOPS, Occupational Pensions, Solvency II directive, Microcredit, UCITS Directive, Management company, UCITS, Cross-border fund processing, Prudential rules, Accounting rules, CEBS, Regulation, Supervision,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Outlook Mutuals Insurance Groups type-docpdf type-doc130.04 Ko calendar-select10-09-2008 id = 45
document Summarized Text :
Amendments to the group definition of Solvency II and additions to the EU legislation on mutuals are asked by insurance mutuals to help them face up to their fast-changing environment in Europe. Insurance mutuals or assimilated organisations represent 25% of the total insurance premiums paid in the EU and 26 of the Top 100 EU insurance companies are mutual while 4 are controlled by mutual holdings. They have a 20 to 40% market share in 7 EU countries (ie Finland, Sweden, France, Germany, Spain, Belgium and Denmark).
Insurance mutuals consider their statute offers advantages in terms of client relationship, governance and pricing flexibility as mutuals are less exposed to short term financial pressures than plcs, which have to take into account the interests of their shareholders as well as their clients.

Insurance mutuals are facing many market and regulatory challenges at present:
- Growth challenges: need for large mutuals or mutuals focused on specific business or customer segments to find new growth opportunities outside of their domestic markets, which are mature and where the product diversification potential has already been leveraged to a great extent
- Efficiency challenges: large mutuals need to improve efficiency continuously to face up to the competition from consolidated plc groups; the Solvency II reform will increase the need for insurance mutuals to regroup to face up to solvency requirements, increase diversification and increase their buying power in financial markets
- Market positioning challenges: mutuals players are seeking to preserve their differentiation through specific customer relationships, offering and image.

tags-label Tags : Mutual insurance companies, Mutual groups, Solvency II directive,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Solvency II introductory note type-docpdf type-doc139.2 Ko calendar-select03-12-2007 id = 97
document Summarized Text :
Solvency II

– Introductory Note EUROFI CONFERENCE– 3/4 December 2007, European Parliament

With the new Solvency II directive currently going through the adoption process, the insurance world is about to experience a major shift in its regulatory landscape. Notable features of this reform include:
• adopting an economic approach for assessing insurance companies’ solvency;
• setting an explicit solvency level (probability of an insurance company defaulting set at 1 in 200 over one year) intended to balance sufficient protection of insured parties, reasonable product prices and strengthened competitiveness for European insurers in a global economy;
• taking financial innovations into account;
• promoting best risk management practices within the profession;
• consolidating the role of insurers as institutional investors for the long-term financing of the European economy.

This reform, according to the Lamfalussy process, has undergone technical preparations in which the supervisors of member states have been heavily involved. There is a risk that technical considerations might push the political aims into second place. That is why, from level 1 of the Lamfalussy procedure, the institutional work linked to Solvency 2 must qualify certain key points. These include, in particular:
• the appropriateness of the calibration of the standard model for assessing risks in relation to the level of confidence set by the directive;
• the provisions for dealing with equities, which must protect the role of insurers involved in long-term financing of the economy under good prudential conditions;
• the procedures for supervision of insurance groups, which must recognise the benefits arising from either geographical or economic sector risk diversification;
• taking into account the specificities of mutual insurance companies’ own-funds and the specific contractual links on the basis of which mutual insurance groups are often constituted;
• guaranteeing fair competition between the insurance company and pension funds in respect of products which meet the same consumer requirements. In addition, measures for implementation (level 2) must not be allowed to downgrade or limit level I provisions that aim at maximum harmonisation. It would therefore also seem to be essential for the text of the directive to emphasise certain principles for application that would include:
• explicit outlawing of all national options (there are, at present, 101 options within the Capital Requirement Directive! - CRD) and all national add-ons;
• regulatory recognition of the guarantee provided by cross-border groups for their subsidiaries, as compensation for local reduced capital requirements. This reduction is a concrete reflection of the benefits that arise from diversification of risks, especially in geographical terms;
• implementation of consolidated supervision for pan-European groups, based on identification of solvency requirements (SCR – Solvency Capital Requirement) at group level; Finally, it is important to ensure or to check that implementation procedures have been devised in line with the political guidelines of the directive by means of:
• the obligation placed on national regulators to justify in advance any request for an “add-on” which would also have to be authorised by the college of supervisors of the...

tags-label Tags : Mutual insurance companies, Mutual groups, Solvency II directive,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Eurofi Mutuals Executive summary [EN] type-docpdf type-doc507.7 Ko calendar-select03-12-2007 id = 94
document Summarized Text :
The outlook for EU insurance mutuals in the fast-changing EU marketplace

Eurofi conference: 3 December 2007 EU Parliament

Executive summary
This document was prepared by Eurofi as an introductory document for the workshop of December 3rd, with the input of the British Building Societies Association, Ethias, Gothaer Group, MACIF, MAIF, Mutualité Française, NFU Mutual, Tapiola and Professor E. Greppi.

1. Context:
Mutual companies have a specific legal statute and specific governance arrangements.
• Mutual companies have no share capital and therefore no shareholders
• They are initially set up and controlled by their customers (their “members”) who have voting rights1 and can be involved to a certain extent in the governance of the company and in decisions made2. Solidarity links exist between members: supplementary calls, possible rebates... What makes mutuals different from plc or cooperative companies is their legal statute and governance arrangements and not their size:
• Most of them are for-profit companies and insurance mutuals of all sizes exist in Europe as for plcs: from a few million Euros annual premiums written to several billion. In the Top 100 EU insurance companies, 26 are mutuals and 4 are controlled by mutual holdings3.
• Most large mutuals cover all insurance markets (P&C4, health, life insurance) and serve all customers far beyond their initial member base5. Smaller mutuals are usually still focused on a specific client or product segment or on a region6.
• Mutuals have access to capital markets: they can issue subordinated debt or hybrid capital eg to finance their development needs
7
1 Equivalent voting rights or weighted rights depending on the company
2 eg by electing representatives who participate in the general meetings and board meetings
3 Examples of mutuals part of the Top 100 EU insurance companies: Groupama N°17 (13,5 Bio € premium), Covea N° 19 (12,0 Bio €), Debeka N° 30 (7,3 Bio €)
Examples of insurers with mutual holding companies part of the Top 100: Talanx / HDI N° 21 (10,2 Bio €), Wiener Staetische N° 36 (5,9 Bio €) Source AISAM (Association Internationale des Sociétés d’Assurance Mutuelle): Gross direct premium written in 2006
4 P&C Property and Casualty insurance covers home, car and other general insurance
5 For example the MAIF in France originally created by a group of school teachers now markets P&C and life insurance to all customers and is the 74th European insurance group with annual gross premium of € 2,6 Bio, but this is only one of the many examples of such developments in the mutual insurance industry
6 This is the same for plcs to a certain extent. According to CEIOPS 4500 insurance companies out of a total of 5300 identified by the CEA (Comité Européen des Assurances) have annual premiums inferior to 10 Mio € (mostly in life insurance) and only 30% of them are mutuals...

tags-label Tags : Mutual insurance companies, Mutual groups, Solvency II directive,
tags-label Type : Executive summary
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Pension funds (2)
Session 12A SOLVENCY II type-docpdf type-doc238.46 Ko calendar-select09-11-2008 id = 32
document Summarized Text :
Eurofi 2008 - Thursday 11/09/08 Session [12A] - SOLVENCY II: QIS4 early feed back from the industry; Group support and diversification effects management, level 2 terms of reference.

The Panel
Moderator: Karel van Hulle, Head of Unit, Insurance and Pensions, DG Internal Market and Services, European Commission Panelists: Henri de Castries, Chief Executive Officer & Chairman of the Management Board, Axa Group; Peter Skinner, MEP, Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, European Parliament; Gérard de La Martinière, Vice-President, European Insurance and Reinsurance Association (CEA) and Chairman, French Insurance Association (FFSA) Asmo Kalpala, Chairman & President, Tapiola Group and President, Association Internationale des Sociétés d’Assurances Mutuelles (AMICE); Tommy Persson, President, European Insurance and Reinsurance Association (CEA) and President. Länsförsäkringar AB

The Debate
The current system of regulation for the insurance industry was 30 years old and it lacked risk sensitivity, did not allow accurate and timely supervision and did not facilitate optimum allocation of capital, said Karel van Hulle, Head of Unit, Insurance and Pensions, DG Internal Market and Services, European Commission, introducing the session. In addition, there was a lack of convergence of supervisory groups, which led to sub-optimal supervision. “There are four principal objectives of Solvency II,” Mr van Hulle said. • Deepen the Single Market • Enhance policyholder protection • Improve (international) competitiveness of EU insurers • Further Better Regulation Some outstanding issues remained to be resolved, such as surplus funds, equity risk, MCR, whether Solvency II should apply to pension funds, group support regimes, mutuals and exclusions, he added.

tags-label Tags : CEIOPS, Occupational Pensions, Mutual groups, Solvency II directive, Pension funds,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Conditions adoption Solvency II type-docpdf type-doc122.69 Ko calendar-select11-09-2008 id = 40
document Summarized Text :
The adoption of the proposed Solvency directive is coming up against several difficulties: the treatment of surplus funds, pension funds and equities, as well as the organization of supervision for cross-border insurance groups. However, pragmatic solutions delivering responses to the legitimate expectations of the insurance industry’s various players, Member States and their supervisors are within reach. The economic approach for risks underpinning Solvency II requires certain clarifications. The exclusion of pension funds from the scope of the directive is causing problems. Faced with the same need to cover their retirement, Europeans, whether they take out life insurance or sign up for pension funds, would have two different levels of security, which they will not be able to perceive. At the same time, this differentiated prudential treatment would lead to a distortion of competition between these two industries. Hence, similar risks should be subjected to the same prudential treatment.

This principle could be implemented within the framework of the next revision of the IORP directive governing pension funds. As of today, it seems important to ensure that a revision of the IORP directive will be carried out based on economic principles that are consistent with those underpinning Solvency II.

tags-label Tags : Solvency II directive, Occupational Pensions, Pension funds,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Competition (5)
Session 03C SEPA-Card payments type-docpdf type-doc198.07 Ko calendar-select09-11-2008 id = 16
document Summarized Text :
Eurofi 2008 – Thursday 11/09/08 Session [3C] CARD PAYMENTS: AN UNDERUSED OPPORTUNITY: Innovative National Authorities’ initiatives - Conditions for an equitable balance among different stake holders.
The Panel Moderator: Wouter de Ploey, Director in McKinsey & Company’s Antwerp office, and Leader of McKinsey’s European Payments Practice. Panellists: Fabrice Denèle, Head of Interbank Relations, Caisse Nationale d’Epargne (CNCE) Steve Perry, Executive Vice-President, Relationship Management, Sales and Commercial Development, Visa Europe Irmfried Schwimann, Acting Director & Head of Unit Antitrust, Financial Services, DG Competition, European Commission Narinda Viguier, Director of Strategy and Interbank relations at Cedicam, part of the Credit Agricole group

The Debate Introducing the session, Wouter de Ploey, Director in McKinsey & Company’s Antwerp office, and Leader of McKinsey’s European Payments Practice, said the key issue was how to develop the card market in Europe, especially in terms of innovation, setting up the market, cross border contacts and initiatives that might be needed from regulators or government to enable these things to happen.

tags-label Tags : Cash, Competition, MIF, Cards, Internet payments,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Session 03D Cross-Border retail Financial Services type-docpdf type-doc198.66 Ko calendar-select09-11-2008 id = 17
document Summarized Text :
Eurofi 2008 - Thursday 11/09/08 Session [3D] PROSPECTS FOR CROSS-BORDER RETAIL FINANCIAL SERVICES AND POTENTIAL BENEFITS FOR RETAIL CUSTOMERS. Where is Europe in the construction of the single retail financial market? What has been achieved? What are consumer expectations? What is the agenda of the Commission, and the European Parliament? What are the priorities for the next ten to fifteen years? What are the best tools for greater integration and better harmonisation in retail financial services?
The Panel
Moderator: Daniel Lebègue, Co-Chairman, Eurofi Panellists: Elemer Terták, Director, Financial Institutions, DG Internal Market & Services, European Commission Giuseppe Zadra, Director General, Italian Banking Association Ieke van den Burg, MEP, Member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, European Parliament

The Debate
Elemer Terták, Director, Financial Institutions, DG Internal Market & Services, European Commission, said there was much to do in terms of integration in retail financial services. “Progress is not as good as we would hope. As we can see it has not reached its potential and competition in certain markets is suffering, particularly in areas such as payments and retail banking. European consumers are unable to take full advantage of the benefits of the single market.”

tags-label Tags : Competition, Regulation,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Session 05C EU Priorities for Retail Payments type-docpdf type-doc167.8 Ko calendar-select09-11-2008 id = 24
document Summarized Text :
Eurofi 2008 - Thursday 11/09/08 Session [5C] - EU PRIORITIES FOR RETAIL PAYMENTS: Political impetus for reducing inefficient payment means and fostering innovation - Legal smoothing of individual’s migration toward SEPA direct debit - Creating a critical mass for SEPA payment schemes Current e-payment landscape – Mobile payment: hype or opportunity? E-mandate the key for an efficient use of SDD – e-invoicing: conditions for success

The Panel
Moderator: Leo Van Hove, Associate Professor of Economics, Vrij Universiteit Brussel Panellists: Jean-Paul Gauzès, MEP, Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, European Parliament Jean-Michel Godeffroy, Director General, Payment Systems and Market Infrastructure, European Central Bank (ECB) Jörgen Holmquist, Director General, Internal Market and Services, European Commission Erik Pointillard, Director of Retail Banking, Caisse Nationale des Caisses d’Epargne(CNCE) Irmfried Schwimann, Acting Director & Head of Antitrust, Financial Services, DG Competition, European Commission

The Debate
The session was designed to address issues of public policy surrounding SEPA, said Leo Van Hove, Associate Professor of Economics, Vrij Universiteit Brussel, in his introduction. What could EU and national institutions do to reduce the use of inefficient payment instruments? What could they do to reduce the use of cash? And could the public sector lead in creating critical mass for SEPA?
Irmfried Schwimann, Acting Director & Head of Antitrust, Financial Services, DG Competition, European Commission, said SEPA was a selfregulated project under which companies deemed to be in competition would enter into a collaborative arrangement. National competition authorities and DG Competition had identified a number of concerns, and many had been cleared up in discussions with the European Payments Council (EPC), but a few issues were “still on the table”. These were concerning governance, standards, and the interchange fee for direct debits.

tags-label Tags : Cash, Competition, MIF,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
SEPA Refocusing the aim type-docpdf type-doc609.92 Ko calendar-select06-06-2006 id = 105
document Summarized Text :
Single Euro Payment Area (SEPA)
Refocusing the aim to achieve genuine across-the-board involvement

The aim of the European institutions is to establish an "integrated market for payment services which is subject to effective competition and where there is no distinction between cross-border and national payments within the euro area"
1. Three payment instruments are concerned
2: direct debits, credit transfers and debit cards. The process will take place in two stages: on 1 January 2008, euro area banks will start to provide users with the SEPA compliant euro payment instruments designed by the European Payments Council (EPC),
3 i.e. pan-European direct debit and credit transfer. By end-2010, the SEPA payment instruments are due to replace permanently all former domestic instruments.

1- 2008: a realistic technical deadline for banks (see Annex I) As a result of extensive work by the banking industry, EPC-defined direct debits and credit transfers will be available domestically and on a cross-border basis as from 2008. In order to create the required legal certainty, the draft of the EC Payment Systems Directive should also be adopted by that date. The market needs this Directive to ensure the European-wide legal basis for relations between participants, especially with regard to the new SEPA direct debit product. Regarding payment cards, the EPC has set the compliance requirements for schemes and payment service providers that want to provide services across the SEPA. These requirements can be met in various ways, allowing individual banks to choose the option that suits best their needs.

The introduction of SEPA compliant products will provide various benefits to endusers and providers, including standardisation of the execution time for cross-border credit transfers, a new pan-European direct debit product and a migration towards pan-European payment infrastructure standards. This standardisation will allow and encourage technical convergence of national systems. The timetable for this will be largely driven by national considerations related to the economics of the incumbent infrastructure (e.g. level of obsolescence or economic efficiency, possible pace of investment). It is expected that the number of payment infrastructures will reduce gradually – currently in excess of 25 – resulting, in the longer run, in a cost reduction for the providers of payment instruments. Multiple adjustments will be needed for systems, banks and their customers. At present, very few entities (utilities, government departments) believe that they will be able to make the necessary technical adjustments by 2008 as a result of the extensive efforts involved. In the end, it will be mainly market forces that will drive the move towards a more integrated and standardised payments environment.
1 Consultation Paper on SEPA Incentives, 13 February 2006
2 Most payment instruments cannot be used – or used as efficiently – in more than one Member State. Crossborder direct debits are impossible; timeframes for cross-border credit transfers vary considerably; national debit cards cannot be used outside the holder's home country; and the legal rules governing payments vary from one country to another.
3 Formed in 2002, the EPC is an interbank organisation composed of some fifty EU banks and three industry groups: the European Association of Cooperative Banks, the European Banking Federation, and the European Savings Banks Group...

tags-label Tags : Cash, Competition, Innovation, MIF, Infrastructure, Cards, Internet payments,
tags-label Type : Position paper
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
SEPA - une ambition recentrée pour une mobilisation effective des
acteurs 		type-docpdf type-doc284.62 Ko calendar-select06-06-2006 id = 106
document Summarized Text :
SEPA - une ambition recentrée pour une mobilisation effective des acteurs

L’objectif des institutions européennes est de créer dans « la zone euro un marché intégré des paiements caractérisé par une compétition effective, et dans lequel il n’existe pas de distinction entre paiements transfrontaliers et paiements domestiques »
1. Trois instruments de paiement sont concernés
2 : le débit direct, le virement et la carte de débit. Les étapes sont les suivantes : au premier janvier 2008 les instruments définis au sein de l’EPC3 (débit direct et virement) sont mis à disposition des utilisateurs par les banques au sein de la zone euro (fin de phase d’implémentation) ; fin 2010 la substitution des anciens instruments par les moyens de paiement européens doit être irréversible.

1- 2008 : Une échéance réaliste sur le plan technique pour les banques (voir annexe I) Suite aux travaux techniques importants menés par la communauté bancaire, le Débit Direct et le Virement tels que définis par l’EPC seront disponibles sur le plan domestique et transfrontalier à l’échéance de 2008. Ceci dans la mesure où le projet de Directive « Systèmes de Paiement », dont le marché attend la base légale régissant les rapports entre les acteurs en particulier pour le débit direct européen, est adoptée et transposée d’ici là. En ce qui concerne la carte de paiement, les travaux de l’EPC établissent les conditions tarifaires d’adhésion et d’acceptation à remplir par les systèmes cartes, pour se prévaloir d’une dimension européenne. Ces conditions semblent aisément accessibles aux différents systèmes existants. Cette étape apportera des bénéfices aux utilisateurs : standardisation des délais pour les virements transfrontaliers, création d’un débit direct pan européen et constitution de standards pour l’industrie à même de favoriser une convergence technique des systèmes à organiser selon un rythme qui prenne en compte les contraintes des différents utilisateurs et des infrastructures locales (degré d’obsolescence ou d’efficacité économique ; rythme possible d’investissement). Cette échéance facilite une réduction progressive du nombre des infrastructures (aujourd’hui supérieur à 25) et en conséquence la réduction des coûts de production des moyens de paiement. Elle nécessite de multiples adaptations pour les systèmes, les banques et leurs clients. A ce jour peu d’entreprises (facturiers, administration publiques) pensent être en mesure de mettre en oeuvre d’ici 2008 les adaptations techniques compte tenu de la lourdeur des efforts à consentir. De façon générale et pour l’ensemble de ces raisons, la concrétisation des bénéfices attendus de cette étape, doit être conduite par les forces de marché.

1 Consultation paper on SEPA Incentives 13 Fev 2006
2 La plus part des instruments de paiement ne peuvent pas être utilisés d’un Etat membre à l’autre, ou pas dans les mêmes conditions d’efficacité : le débit direct de peut être utilisé sur le plan transfrontalier, les virements transfrontaliers sont exécutés dans des délais hétérogènes, les cartes de débit nationales de peuvent fonctionner au-delà des frontières, enfin, les règles juridiques appliqués aux paiements divergent d’un pays à l’autre
3 European Payment Cooucil : crée en 2002, cette instance interbancaire regroupe une cinquantaine de banques de l’Union européenne ainsi que les trois associations bancaires professionnelles (groupement européen des banques coopératives, fédération bancaire européenne, groupement européen des caisses d’épargne)...

tags-label Tags : Cash, Competition, Innovation, MIF, Infrastructure, Cards, Internet payments,
tags-label Type : Position paper
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Investment Funds (49)
UCITS Directive (6)
Eurofi Report 5 Regulatory improvements Investment products type-docpdf type-doc178.53 Ko calendar-select06-02-2009 id = 7
document Summarized Text :
The1current financial crisis and the alleged Madoff fraud have revealed risks and gaps in investment products regulation and supervision that need to be solved at the EU and possibly global regulatory levels with clarified and more harmonized responsibilities and liabilities along the fund value chain. Assessing further harmonisation opportunities of the framework of non UCITS investment products should also be a major objective for the Commission following a clarification of the needs of retail and institutional investors.

1. Clarifying responsibilities along the fund value chain and launching a harmonization effort across Europe are major priorities:

tags-label Tags : UCITS Directive, Asset Management, Non harmonised funds, TA, Depositaries, UCITS, Competing products, Risk management,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
EUROFI PRIORITIES FOR ECOFIN type-docpdf type-doc115.97 Ko calendar-select10-09-2008 id = 37
document Summarized Text :
Eurofi, the dedicated think-tank for the integration of financial services in Europe, is organizing a conference on September 11 and 12 to discuss the proposals put forward by the financial industry at the ECOFIN, set against a global crisis with leaders facing new challenges.

This crisis shows that the supervision of cross-border financial groups must be adapted in order to factor in the rapid spillover of risks, the internationalization of their activities and the centralized organization of their financial management and strategy.
That is why Eurofi is proposing a series of pragmatic measures to improve the supervision of these groups and the prevention of crises, notably including:
- The establishment of colleges grouping the European supervisors concerned together, which would be given a similar mandate in order to ensure identical protection for all of the group’s European customers;
- A specific role entrusted to the supervisor from the home European country, ensuring that decisions relating to capital requirements and the organization of supervision can be taken quickly and effectively, and that information is immediately made available to all the other supervisors;
- The mission entrusted to the European supervisor committees (CEBS and CEIOPS), to facilitate the resolution of possible differences of views between supervisors from a given college and check that the conditions for fair competition between the financial institutions are brought about.

tags-label Tags : CEIOPS, Occupational Pensions, Solvency II directive, Microcredit, UCITS Directive, Management company, UCITS, Cross-border fund processing, Prudential rules, Accounting rules, CEBS, Regulation, Supervision,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
UCITS Regulatory framework type-docpdf type-doc122.45 Ko calendar-select10-09-2008 id = 49
document Summarized Text :
There is a strong agreement among industry stakeholders on the added value of the proposals made for reviewing the UCITS Directive (UCITS IV) ie streamlining of the notification process, fund mergers, pooling / master feeder techniques, Key Three main conditions indeed need to be fulfilled for a MC to manage UCITS funds on a remote basis:

- UCITS funds receiving services from a MC based abroad must continue to be managed and administered by the MC in compliance with the relevant rules of the UCITS domicile
- A clear definition of the respective responsibilities of the Fund regulator and of the MC regulator must be possible as well as cooperation mechanisms between regulators and interfaces between regulators, the MC and the depositary
-The conditions required for passporting MC collective portfolio services should generate sufficient economic benefits and not lead to regressions in Member States (MSs) where administrative activities can be widely outsourced on a cross-border basis
The assessments conducted by the Eurofi working group show that there are no major technical obstacles at present for MCs to fulfill these conditions on a remote basis with modern communication means. Most administrative activities involve data processing that can be operationally conducted cross-border. In addition initial proposals were made to define a framework of responsibilities ensuring that investor protection is safeguarded in this context. These principles could be defined at Level I of the Directive and further detailed at Level II:

-The current responsibilities of the Management Company and the Depositary should remain unchanged
- Supervisory responsibilities should be allocated between the Fund regulator and the Management Company regulator with leadership given to the Fund regulator for matters regarding the Fund
-A framework should be defined for cooperation, arbitration and escalation mechanisms between supervisors, applicable to the authorization process and to the on-going monitoring of the fund3.

But a detailed operational analysis of the way administrative activities are conducted on a day-to-day basis shows that the current differences in local laws across EU countries and specific local requirements that impact administrative activities of the fund – eg NAV calculation or fund accounting with differing splits of responsibilities between the MC and the depositary, differing methods, delegation rules etc... - make the remote performance of some services and the maintenance of expertise more complex in a cross-border environment.

3 This should be facilitated by the rules for supervisory cooperation described in the UCITS IV proposal Investor Document and supervisory cooperation. On the other hand the Management Company Passport (MCP) concept has remained controversial particularly for contractual funds which are not legal entities (eg FCPs). The concept of the MCP already exists in the current UCITS III framework but is limited to corporate funds (eg SICAV which have a legal personality).

In July 2008 CESR was requested by the Commission to provide advice on remaining technical questions that need to be addressed when introducing a MCP. Eurofi and a working group composed of industry representatives from all parts of the value chain, ie asset managers, depositaries and administrative agents operating in different EU financial centers1, assessed during the first semester of 2008 the practical conditions for UCITS funds to receive services from a remote management company (MC) based in a foreign EU member state. Our evaluation has particularly focused on the administrative activities performed by the MC2 which are at the heart of the current debate evolving around investor protection and economic issues.

Our overall conclusion at this stage is that implementing a MCP is a feasible and economically attractive objective to improve the efficiency of the EU funds industry but should be implemented with a staged approach. We consider that conditions for Management Companies (MC) to operate cross-border could be significantly optimized in the short run with an adequate framework of responsibilities defined at Level I. MCs should in particular no longer be required to maintain a capitalized legal entity in the fund domicile to perform their activity which would lead to significant potential savings...

tags-label Tags : UCITS Directive, Management company, UCITS,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Session 01A Innovation in EU Funds type-docpdf type-doc168.9 Ko calendar-select05-02-2009 id = 11
document Summarized Text :
Eurofi 2008 - Thursday 11/09/08 Session [1A] - TAKING INTO ACCOUNT INNOVATION IN THE EU INVESTMENT FUND REGULATORY FRAMEWORK: Keeping up with innovation in secured conditions through potential evolutions in the product or distribution framework of investment funds. The Panel Moderator: Marc Truchet, Senior fellow consultant, Eurofi Panellists: Niall Bohan, Head of Unit, Asset Management, DG Internal Market and Services, European Commission; Alain Leclair, Chairman, French Asset Management Association; Wolfgang Mansfeld, Member of the Executive Board, Union Asset Management Holding AG, Chaiman, BVI; Jean-Paul Mazoyer, General Management Committee Member in Charge of Development, Crédit Agricole Asset Management; Lisa Rabbe, Managing Director, Goldman Sachs International

tags-label Tags : UCITS Directive, Private placement, Non harmonised funds, UCITS, Competing products, Hedge funds,
tags-label Type : Compte-rendu
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Investment funds Innovation Executive Summary type-docpdf type-doc119.8 Ko calendar-select11-09-2008 id = 42
document Summarized Text :
Financial innovation is constant in the investment funds market, driven by the need for the industry to continue to ensure differentiation and find new sources of performance and revenue and by investor demand eg for new types of products less correlated with the stock exchange. Producers use different approaches to answer these needs: diversification of asset (eg new geographies or industrial sectors), new investment techniques or strategies (eg hedge funds with the objective to offer “absolute return” regardless of market conditions), new product concepts (eg guaranteed products or lifestyle funds for retail investors).

Local regulatory product frameworks have been evolving over time to accommodate these evolutions and needs. The EU regulatory framework also needs to keep pace with these evolutions to create a secure framework for the passportability of new products across European countries and to create innovative product labels that can be exported successfully out of Europe. The UCITS Directive, which is the only existing European product legislation for investment funds has evolved over time despite the constraints of the legislative process, since the UCITS directive was not drafted following the Lamfalussy principles.

The list of eligible assets allowed in the UCITS framework has been expanded over time to keep track with financial innovation. But the increasing volume of investment funds and investment products (eg certificates, notes…) that do not fall under the UCITS label and the high proportion of UCITS funds sold to institutional investors (25% of AuM according to the EU Commission) illustrate the limits of the present framework.

tags-label Tags : UCITS Directive, UCITS, Competing products, Hedge funds, Private equity funds,
tags-label Type : Executive summary
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Investment funds Executive summary type-docpdf type-doc812.27 Ko calendar-select03-12-2007 id = 92
document Summarized Text :
Optimising cross-border distribution and processing of investment funds in the EU

Eurofi conference: 4 December 2007 EU Parliament

Executive summary of the Eurofi initiative
1. Eurofi worked over the last 12 months with a representative group of fund industry leaders covering the different steps of the value chain1, to make proposals for improving cross-border fund distribution and processing in the EU: UCITS funds are a booming market in Europe:
2 • At the end of 2006 €7550 billion were managed through investment funds domiciled in the EU representing 34% of the worldwide fund industry. UCITS funds represented 79% of this total with €5900 billion managed through approximately 31000 funds.
• The market growth has been very strong for UCITS and sustained over the recent years: +80% growth between 2003 vs 2006 and a two-fold increase since 1998. Cross-border and third-party fund distribution is developing in the EU3:
• Cross-border funds (ie registered in 5 countries or more) represented around 30% of net asset flows in 2005 and intra-EU cross-border fund transactions are considered to represent around 20% of total transactions in the EU
• Major distributors evaluated that in 2006, 55% of their activity was third-party with 35% in foreign funds. Many operational and legal obstacles limit at present the efficiency of UCITS cross-border distribution and processing in the EU. These obstacles are becoming increasingly important to address as cross-border and open architecture distribution develop. Solving these inefficiencies could further enhance the competitiveness of the EU funds industry by reducing complexity and eliminating certain operational risks and extra-costs. The EU Commission has focused the proposals made in the White Paper on activities related to regulatory compliance, management company overhead and asset management which are considered to represent around 15% of total costs and on some components of distribution (total distribution costs were evaluated to represent 60% of total costs)4.

1 The following institutions were part of the Eurofi working group co-chaired by W. Klinz (MEP), E. Corley (Allianz GI) and A. Papiasse (BNP Paribas) : - Banks (including asset management and processing entities): BNP Paribas, Unicredit Group / Pioneer AM / Bank Austria Creditanstalt, Crédit Agricole, Fortis
- Asset managers: JPMorgan AM, Natixis Global Associates, Union Investment, HSBC IM, Allianz GI, DWS
-Processing service providers: Citigroup, Schroders, Société Générale, CACEIS, State Street,
- Stock exchanges: Euronext, Bourse de Luxembourg
2 Source : EFAMA statistics
3 Source FERI statistics and FERI 2006 European Fund Buyer Survey. A rising proportion of UCITS are also sold outside the EU (around 15% of net sales)
4 Source: CRA study September 2006 - average production and distribution costs for equity funds in a sample of EU markets . CRA estimated that total production and distribution costs amounted to ~150 bp on average in a sample of EU countries. The study did not cover the whole value chain (eg trading costs are not included). We were not able to verify the validity of these costs or the methodology used, but these results give an indication of the breakdown of costs.

Asset management costs comprise: cash management, research, asset allocation, operational asset management and dealing decisions. Processing and administration costs cover fund and client administration, regulatory compliance of the fund and management company overheads and systems. Distribution and marketing costs cover new product development, compensation to distributors, documentation, promotional activity…

tags-label Tags : UCITS Directive, Non harmonised funds, TA, Depositaries, UCITS, Automation, Standardisation,
tags-label Type : Executive summary
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Asset Management (1)
Eurofi Report 5 Regulatory improvements Investment products type-docpdf type-doc178.53 Ko calendar-select06-02-2009 id = 7
document Summarized Text :
The1current financial crisis and the alleged Madoff fraud have revealed risks and gaps in investment products regulation and supervision that need to be solved at the EU and possibly global regulatory levels with clarified and more harmonized responsibilities and liabilities along the fund value chain. Assessing further harmonisation opportunities of the framework of non UCITS investment products should also be a major objective for the Commission following a clarification of the needs of retail and institutional investors.

1. Clarifying responsibilities along the fund value chain and launching a harmonization effort across Europe are major priorities:

tags-label Tags : UCITS Directive, Asset Management, Non harmonised funds, TA, Depositaries, UCITS, Competing products, Risk management,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Private placement (1)
Session 01A Innovation in EU Funds type-docpdf type-doc168.9 Ko calendar-select05-02-2009 id = 11
document Summarized Text :
Eurofi 2008 - Thursday 11/09/08 Session [1A] - TAKING INTO ACCOUNT INNOVATION IN THE EU INVESTMENT FUND REGULATORY FRAMEWORK: Keeping up with innovation in secured conditions through potential evolutions in the product or distribution framework of investment funds. The Panel Moderator: Marc Truchet, Senior fellow consultant, Eurofi Panellists: Niall Bohan, Head of Unit, Asset Management, DG Internal Market and Services, European Commission; Alain Leclair, Chairman, French Asset Management Association; Wolfgang Mansfeld, Member of the Executive Board, Union Asset Management Holding AG, Chaiman, BVI; Jean-Paul Mazoyer, General Management Committee Member in Charge of Development, Crédit Agricole Asset Management; Lisa Rabbe, Managing Director, Goldman Sachs International

tags-label Tags : UCITS Directive, Private placement, Non harmonised funds, UCITS, Competing products, Hedge funds,
tags-label Type : Compte-rendu
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Non harmonised funds (5)
Eurofi Report 5 Regulatory improvements Investment products type-docpdf type-doc178.53 Ko calendar-select06-02-2009 id = 7
document Summarized Text :
The1current financial crisis and the alleged Madoff fraud have revealed risks and gaps in investment products regulation and supervision that need to be solved at the EU and possibly global regulatory levels with clarified and more harmonized responsibilities and liabilities along the fund value chain. Assessing further harmonisation opportunities of the framework of non UCITS investment products should also be a major objective for the Commission following a clarification of the needs of retail and institutional investors.

1. Clarifying responsibilities along the fund value chain and launching a harmonization effort across Europe are major priorities:

tags-label Tags : UCITS Directive, Asset Management, Non harmonised funds, TA, Depositaries, UCITS, Competing products, Risk management,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Session 05B EU Priorities for UCTS & Securities Infrastructures type-docpdf type-doc169.35 Ko calendar-select09-11-2008 id = 23
document Summarized Text :
Eurofi 2008 - Thursday 11/09/08 Session [5B] - EU PRIORITIES FOR INVESTMENT FUNDS AND EU SECURITIES INFRASTRUCTURES: Evolution of the UCITS regulatory framework, remaining challenges for securities infrastructures

The Panel
Moderators: Piia-Noora Kauppi, MEP, Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, European Parliament; Wolf Klinz, MEP, Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, European Parliament Panellists: Marc Raynaud, Global Head of Mutual Fund Distribution, BNP Paribas Investment Partners; David Wright, Deputy Director General, DG Internal Market and Services, European Commission Carlo Comporti, Secretary General, Committee of European Securities Regulators (CESR); Gertrude Tumpel-Gugerell, Member of the Executive Board, European Central Bank (ECB); Alain Closier, Global Head of Securities Services, Société Générale;

The Debate
The non-harmonised market was growing considerably faster than harmonised funds, commented Wolf Klinz, MEP, Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, European Parliament, the moderator, opening the debate. UCITS funds were set up for the retail investor and yet a quarter of them were being sold to institutions. This suggested the need for more instruments to be eligible for inclusion, he said.
In addition, the brand had proved successful in places such as the Far East and Latin America, but competition within the European fund industry was hampering efforts to expand the brand even further. “With problems such as manual processing, we are unable to exploit economies of scale,” argued Mr Klinz.

tags-label Tags : Investment services and regulated markets (MiFID), Non harmonised funds, UCITS, Competing products, Custody, T2S, Collateral, Code of conduct, Consolidation,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
AIFM type-docpdf type-doc141.32 Ko calendar-select07-04-2010 id = 132
document Summarized Text :

Proposals regarding proportionality principles and the obligations of the depositary in the AIFM Directive

These proposals for adjustments to the Gauzès report on the AIFM Directive have been drafted by Eurofi with the input of a group of representative asset managers, custodians, valuators, prime brokers and insurance groups operating in the EU. Their objectives are to better take into account certain operational constraints and improve the allocation of responsibilities in the requirements of the Directive while maintaining its coherence and initial objectives.

The following players contributed to this initiative: Amundi Asset Management (formerly Crédit Agricole AM), AXA Investment Managers, The Bank of New York Mellon, BNP Paribas Investment Partners and Securities Services, CACEIS, Citi, Deutsche Bank, Fidelity International, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Hedge Fund Standard Board (HFSB), MidEuropa, Pioneer, Prudential, Société Générale and Union Investment.


tags-label Tags : Non harmonised funds, Open ended real estate funds, Depositaries, Hedge funds, Private equity funds,
tags-label Type : Compte-rendu
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Session 01A Innovation in EU Funds type-docpdf type-doc168.9 Ko calendar-select05-02-2009 id = 11
document Summarized Text :
Eurofi 2008 - Thursday 11/09/08 Session [1A] - TAKING INTO ACCOUNT INNOVATION IN THE EU INVESTMENT FUND REGULATORY FRAMEWORK: Keeping up with innovation in secured conditions through potential evolutions in the product or distribution framework of investment funds. The Panel Moderator: Marc Truchet, Senior fellow consultant, Eurofi Panellists: Niall Bohan, Head of Unit, Asset Management, DG Internal Market and Services, European Commission; Alain Leclair, Chairman, French Asset Management Association; Wolfgang Mansfeld, Member of the Executive Board, Union Asset Management Holding AG, Chaiman, BVI; Jean-Paul Mazoyer, General Management Committee Member in Charge of Development, Crédit Agricole Asset Management; Lisa Rabbe, Managing Director, Goldman Sachs International

tags-label Tags : UCITS Directive, Private placement, Non harmonised funds, UCITS, Competing products, Hedge funds,
tags-label Type : Compte-rendu
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Investment funds Executive summary type-docpdf type-doc812.27 Ko calendar-select03-12-2007 id = 92
document Summarized Text :
Optimising cross-border distribution and processing of investment funds in the EU

Eurofi conference: 4 December 2007 EU Parliament

Executive summary of the Eurofi initiative
1. Eurofi worked over the last 12 months with a representative group of fund industry leaders covering the different steps of the value chain1, to make proposals for improving cross-border fund distribution and processing in the EU: UCITS funds are a booming market in Europe:
2 • At the end of 2006 €7550 billion were managed through investment funds domiciled in the EU representing 34% of the worldwide fund industry. UCITS funds represented 79% of this total with €5900 billion managed through approximately 31000 funds.
• The market growth has been very strong for UCITS and sustained over the recent years: +80% growth between 2003 vs 2006 and a two-fold increase since 1998. Cross-border and third-party fund distribution is developing in the EU3:
• Cross-border funds (ie registered in 5 countries or more) represented around 30% of net asset flows in 2005 and intra-EU cross-border fund transactions are considered to represent around 20% of total transactions in the EU
• Major distributors evaluated that in 2006, 55% of their activity was third-party with 35% in foreign funds. Many operational and legal obstacles limit at present the efficiency of UCITS cross-border distribution and processing in the EU. These obstacles are becoming increasingly important to address as cross-border and open architecture distribution develop. Solving these inefficiencies could further enhance the competitiveness of the EU funds industry by reducing complexity and eliminating certain operational risks and extra-costs. The EU Commission has focused the proposals made in the White Paper on activities related to regulatory compliance, management company overhead and asset management which are considered to represent around 15% of total costs and on some components of distribution (total distribution costs were evaluated to represent 60% of total costs)4.

1 The following institutions were part of the Eurofi working group co-chaired by W. Klinz (MEP), E. Corley (Allianz GI) and A. Papiasse (BNP Paribas) : - Banks (including asset management and processing entities): BNP Paribas, Unicredit Group / Pioneer AM / Bank Austria Creditanstalt, Crédit Agricole, Fortis
- Asset managers: JPMorgan AM, Natixis Global Associates, Union Investment, HSBC IM, Allianz GI, DWS
-Processing service providers: Citigroup, Schroders, Société Générale, CACEIS, State Street,
- Stock exchanges: Euronext, Bourse de Luxembourg
2 Source : EFAMA statistics
3 Source FERI statistics and FERI 2006 European Fund Buyer Survey. A rising proportion of UCITS are also sold outside the EU (around 15% of net sales)
4 Source: CRA study September 2006 - average production and distribution costs for equity funds in a sample of EU markets . CRA estimated that total production and distribution costs amounted to ~150 bp on average in a sample of EU countries. The study did not cover the whole value chain (eg trading costs are not included). We were not able to verify the validity of these costs or the methodology used, but these results give an indication of the breakdown of costs.

Asset management costs comprise: cash management, research, asset allocation, operational asset management and dealing decisions. Processing and administration costs cover fund and client administration, regulatory compliance of the fund and management company overheads and systems. Distribution and marketing costs cover new product development, compensation to distributors, documentation, promotional activity…

tags-label Tags : UCITS Directive, Non harmonised funds, TA, Depositaries, UCITS, Automation, Standardisation,
tags-label Type : Executive summary
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Open ended real estate funds (1)
AIFM type-docpdf type-doc141.32 Ko calendar-select07-04-2010 id = 132
document Summarized Text :

Proposals regarding proportionality principles and the obligations of the depositary in the AIFM Directive

These proposals for adjustments to the Gauzès report on the AIFM Directive have been drafted by Eurofi with the input of a group of representative asset managers, custodians, valuators, prime brokers and insurance groups operating in the EU. Their objectives are to better take into account certain operational constraints and improve the allocation of responsibilities in the requirements of the Directive while maintaining its coherence and initial objectives.

The following players contributed to this initiative: Amundi Asset Management (formerly Crédit Agricole AM), AXA Investment Managers, The Bank of New York Mellon, BNP Paribas Investment Partners and Securities Services, CACEIS, Citi, Deutsche Bank, Fidelity International, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Hedge Fund Standard Board (HFSB), MidEuropa, Pioneer, Prudential, Société Générale and Union Investment.


tags-label Tags : Non harmonised funds, Open ended real estate funds, Depositaries, Hedge funds, Private equity funds,
tags-label Type : Compte-rendu
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Management company (2)
EUROFI PRIORITIES FOR ECOFIN type-docpdf type-doc115.97 Ko calendar-select10-09-2008 id = 37
document Summarized Text :
Eurofi, the dedicated think-tank for the integration of financial services in Europe, is organizing a conference on September 11 and 12 to discuss the proposals put forward by the financial industry at the ECOFIN, set against a global crisis with leaders facing new challenges.

This crisis shows that the supervision of cross-border financial groups must be adapted in order to factor in the rapid spillover of risks, the internationalization of their activities and the centralized organization of their financial management and strategy.
That is why Eurofi is proposing a series of pragmatic measures to improve the supervision of these groups and the prevention of crises, notably including:
- The establishment of colleges grouping the European supervisors concerned together, which would be given a similar mandate in order to ensure identical protection for all of the group’s European customers;
- A specific role entrusted to the supervisor from the home European country, ensuring that decisions relating to capital requirements and the organization of supervision can be taken quickly and effectively, and that information is immediately made available to all the other supervisors;
- The mission entrusted to the European supervisor committees (CEBS and CEIOPS), to facilitate the resolution of possible differences of views between supervisors from a given college and check that the conditions for fair competition between the financial institutions are brought about.

tags-label Tags : CEIOPS, Occupational Pensions, Solvency II directive, Microcredit, UCITS Directive, Management company, UCITS, Cross-border fund processing, Prudential rules, Accounting rules, CEBS, Regulation, Supervision,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
UCITS Regulatory framework type-docpdf type-doc122.45 Ko calendar-select10-09-2008 id = 49
document Summarized Text :
There is a strong agreement among industry stakeholders on the added value of the proposals made for reviewing the UCITS Directive (UCITS IV) ie streamlining of the notification process, fund mergers, pooling / master feeder techniques, Key Three main conditions indeed need to be fulfilled for a MC to manage UCITS funds on a remote basis:

- UCITS funds receiving services from a MC based abroad must continue to be managed and administered by the MC in compliance with the relevant rules of the UCITS domicile
- A clear definition of the respective responsibilities of the Fund regulator and of the MC regulator must be possible as well as cooperation mechanisms between regulators and interfaces between regulators, the MC and the depositary
-The conditions required for passporting MC collective portfolio services should generate sufficient economic benefits and not lead to regressions in Member States (MSs) where administrative activities can be widely outsourced on a cross-border basis
The assessments conducted by the Eurofi working group show that there are no major technical obstacles at present for MCs to fulfill these conditions on a remote basis with modern communication means. Most administrative activities involve data processing that can be operationally conducted cross-border. In addition initial proposals were made to define a framework of responsibilities ensuring that investor protection is safeguarded in this context. These principles could be defined at Level I of the Directive and further detailed at Level II:

-The current responsibilities of the Management Company and the Depositary should remain unchanged
- Supervisory responsibilities should be allocated between the Fund regulator and the Management Company regulator with leadership given to the Fund regulator for matters regarding the Fund
-A framework should be defined for cooperation, arbitration and escalation mechanisms between supervisors, applicable to the authorization process and to the on-going monitoring of the fund3.

But a detailed operational analysis of the way administrative activities are conducted on a day-to-day basis shows that the current differences in local laws across EU countries and specific local requirements that impact administrative activities of the fund – eg NAV calculation or fund accounting with differing splits of responsibilities between the MC and the depositary, differing methods, delegation rules etc... - make the remote performance of some services and the maintenance of expertise more complex in a cross-border environment.

3 This should be facilitated by the rules for supervisory cooperation described in the UCITS IV proposal Investor Document and supervisory cooperation. On the other hand the Management Company Passport (MCP) concept has remained controversial particularly for contractual funds which are not legal entities (eg FCPs). The concept of the MCP already exists in the current UCITS III framework but is limited to corporate funds (eg SICAV which have a legal personality).

In July 2008 CESR was requested by the Commission to provide advice on remaining technical questions that need to be addressed when introducing a MCP. Eurofi and a working group composed of industry representatives from all parts of the value chain, ie asset managers, depositaries and administrative agents operating in different EU financial centers1, assessed during the first semester of 2008 the practical conditions for UCITS funds to receive services from a remote management company (MC) based in a foreign EU member state. Our evaluation has particularly focused on the administrative activities performed by the MC2 which are at the heart of the current debate evolving around investor protection and economic issues.

Our overall conclusion at this stage is that implementing a MCP is a feasible and economically attractive objective to improve the efficiency of the EU funds industry but should be implemented with a staged approach. We consider that conditions for Management Companies (MC) to operate cross-border could be significantly optimized in the short run with an adequate framework of responsibilities defined at Level I. MCs should in particular no longer be required to maintain a capitalized legal entity in the fund domicile to perform their activity which would lead to significant potential savings...

tags-label Tags : UCITS Directive, Management company, UCITS,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
TA (3)
Eurofi Report 5 Regulatory improvements Investment products type-docpdf type-doc178.53 Ko calendar-select06-02-2009 id = 7
document Summarized Text :
The1current financial crisis and the alleged Madoff fraud have revealed risks and gaps in investment products regulation and supervision that need to be solved at the EU and possibly global regulatory levels with clarified and more harmonized responsibilities and liabilities along the fund value chain. Assessing further harmonisation opportunities of the framework of non UCITS investment products should also be a major objective for the Commission following a clarification of the needs of retail and institutional investors.

1. Clarifying responsibilities along the fund value chain and launching a harmonization effort across Europe are major priorities:

tags-label Tags : UCITS Directive, Asset Management, Non harmonised funds, TA, Depositaries, UCITS, Competing products, Risk management,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Ucits Processing type-docpdf type-doc131.43 Ko calendar-select11-09-2008 id = 48
document Summarized Text :
Substantial progress is required in automation and standardization of all crossborder fund processing activities - order execution and settlement of transactions and commissions handling - to face up to increasing transaction volumes.

Investment funds are indeed a booming market in Europe and the volume of cross-border and third-party orders processed is developing strongly:
- At the end of 2006 e 7550 Bio were managed by approximately 31000 funds domiciled in the EU representing 34% of the worldwide fund industry and an 80% increase since 2003.
- Cross-border funds (ie registered in 5 countries or more) represented around 30% of net asset flows in 2005 and intra-EU cross-border fund transactions are considered to represent around 20% of total transactions in the EU.
- Third-party cross-border orders were evaluated to amount to around 27 Mio orders in 2006 for Luxembourg and Ireland – processed by TAs. Although progress is being made through many industry-driven initiatives, the level of automation and standardization of crossborder fund processing still needs to be optimized to improve efficiency, scalability and risk management with rising volumes:
- At present around 50% of cross-border orders are automated, mainly through relationships between large players and a progressive penetration of processing hubs, both supported by the Swift network. Many small and medium sized distributors in particular remain to be automated to reduce average costs and risks1.

tags-label Tags : TA, Cross-border fund processing, Automation, Standardisation,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Investment funds Executive summary type-docpdf type-doc812.27 Ko calendar-select03-12-2007 id = 92
document Summarized Text :
Optimising cross-border distribution and processing of investment funds in the EU

Eurofi conference: 4 December 2007 EU Parliament

Executive summary of the Eurofi initiative
1. Eurofi worked over the last 12 months with a representative group of fund industry leaders covering the different steps of the value chain1, to make proposals for improving cross-border fund distribution and processing in the EU: UCITS funds are a booming market in Europe:
2 • At the end of 2006 €7550 billion were managed through investment funds domiciled in the EU representing 34% of the worldwide fund industry. UCITS funds represented 79% of this total with €5900 billion managed through approximately 31000 funds.
• The market growth has been very strong for UCITS and sustained over the recent years: +80% growth between 2003 vs 2006 and a two-fold increase since 1998. Cross-border and third-party fund distribution is developing in the EU3:
• Cross-border funds (ie registered in 5 countries or more) represented around 30% of net asset flows in 2005 and intra-EU cross-border fund transactions are considered to represent around 20% of total transactions in the EU
• Major distributors evaluated that in 2006, 55% of their activity was third-party with 35% in foreign funds. Many operational and legal obstacles limit at present the efficiency of UCITS cross-border distribution and processing in the EU. These obstacles are becoming increasingly important to address as cross-border and open architecture distribution develop. Solving these inefficiencies could further enhance the competitiveness of the EU funds industry by reducing complexity and eliminating certain operational risks and extra-costs. The EU Commission has focused the proposals made in the White Paper on activities related to regulatory compliance, management company overhead and asset management which are considered to represent around 15% of total costs and on some components of distribution (total distribution costs were evaluated to represent 60% of total costs)4.

1 The following institutions were part of the Eurofi working group co-chaired by W. Klinz (MEP), E. Corley (Allianz GI) and A. Papiasse (BNP Paribas) : - Banks (including asset management and processing entities): BNP Paribas, Unicredit Group / Pioneer AM / Bank Austria Creditanstalt, Crédit Agricole, Fortis
- Asset managers: JPMorgan AM, Natixis Global Associates, Union Investment, HSBC IM, Allianz GI, DWS
-Processing service providers: Citigroup, Schroders, Société Générale, CACEIS, State Street,
- Stock exchanges: Euronext, Bourse de Luxembourg
2 Source : EFAMA statistics
3 Source FERI statistics and FERI 2006 European Fund Buyer Survey. A rising proportion of UCITS are also sold outside the EU (around 15% of net sales)
4 Source: CRA study September 2006 - average production and distribution costs for equity funds in a sample of EU markets . CRA estimated that total production and distribution costs amounted to ~150 bp on average in a sample of EU countries. The study did not cover the whole value chain (eg trading costs are not included). We were not able to verify the validity of these costs or the methodology used, but these results give an indication of the breakdown of costs.

Asset management costs comprise: cash management, research, asset allocation, operational asset management and dealing decisions. Processing and administration costs cover fund and client administration, regulatory compliance of the fund and management company overheads and systems. Distribution and marketing costs cover new product development, compensation to distributors, documentation, promotional activity…

tags-label Tags : UCITS Directive, Non harmonised funds, TA, Depositaries, UCITS, Automation, Standardisation,
tags-label Type : Executive summary
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Depositaries (3)
AIFM type-docpdf type-doc141.32 Ko calendar-select07-04-2010 id = 132
document Summarized Text :

Proposals regarding proportionality principles and the obligations of the depositary in the AIFM Directive

These proposals for adjustments to the Gauzès report on the AIFM Directive have been drafted by Eurofi with the input of a group of representative asset managers, custodians, valuators, prime brokers and insurance groups operating in the EU. Their objectives are to better take into account certain operational constraints and improve the allocation of responsibilities in the requirements of the Directive while maintaining its coherence and initial objectives.

The following players contributed to this initiative: Amundi Asset Management (formerly Crédit Agricole AM), AXA Investment Managers, The Bank of New York Mellon, BNP Paribas Investment Partners and Securities Services, CACEIS, Citi, Deutsche Bank, Fidelity International, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Hedge Fund Standard Board (HFSB), MidEuropa, Pioneer, Prudential, Société Générale and Union Investment.


tags-label Tags : Non harmonised funds, Open ended real estate funds, Depositaries, Hedge funds, Private equity funds,
tags-label Type : Compte-rendu
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Eurofi Report 5 Regulatory improvements Investment products type-docpdf type-doc178.53 Ko calendar-select06-02-2009 id = 7
document Summarized Text :
The1current financial crisis and the alleged Madoff fraud have revealed risks and gaps in investment products regulation and supervision that need to be solved at the EU and possibly global regulatory levels with clarified and more harmonized responsibilities and liabilities along the fund value chain. Assessing further harmonisation opportunities of the framework of non UCITS investment products should also be a major objective for the Commission following a clarification of the needs of retail and institutional investors.

1. Clarifying responsibilities along the fund value chain and launching a harmonization effort across Europe are major priorities:

tags-label Tags : UCITS Directive, Asset Management, Non harmonised funds, TA, Depositaries, UCITS, Competing products, Risk management,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Investment funds Executive summary type-docpdf type-doc812.27 Ko calendar-select03-12-2007 id = 92
document Summarized Text :
Optimising cross-border distribution and processing of investment funds in the EU

Eurofi conference: 4 December 2007 EU Parliament

Executive summary of the Eurofi initiative
1. Eurofi worked over the last 12 months with a representative group of fund industry leaders covering the different steps of the value chain1, to make proposals for improving cross-border fund distribution and processing in the EU: UCITS funds are a booming market in Europe:
2 • At the end of 2006 €7550 billion were managed through investment funds domiciled in the EU representing 34% of the worldwide fund industry. UCITS funds represented 79% of this total with €5900 billion managed through approximately 31000 funds.
• The market growth has been very strong for UCITS and sustained over the recent years: +80% growth between 2003 vs 2006 and a two-fold increase since 1998. Cross-border and third-party fund distribution is developing in the EU3:
• Cross-border funds (ie registered in 5 countries or more) represented around 30% of net asset flows in 2005 and intra-EU cross-border fund transactions are considered to represent around 20% of total transactions in the EU
• Major distributors evaluated that in 2006, 55% of their activity was third-party with 35% in foreign funds. Many operational and legal obstacles limit at present the efficiency of UCITS cross-border distribution and processing in the EU. These obstacles are becoming increasingly important to address as cross-border and open architecture distribution develop. Solving these inefficiencies could further enhance the competitiveness of the EU funds industry by reducing complexity and eliminating certain operational risks and extra-costs. The EU Commission has focused the proposals made in the White Paper on activities related to regulatory compliance, management company overhead and asset management which are considered to represent around 15% of total costs and on some components of distribution (total distribution costs were evaluated to represent 60% of total costs)4.

1 The following institutions were part of the Eurofi working group co-chaired by W. Klinz (MEP), E. Corley (Allianz GI) and A. Papiasse (BNP Paribas) : - Banks (including asset management and processing entities): BNP Paribas, Unicredit Group / Pioneer AM / Bank Austria Creditanstalt, Crédit Agricole, Fortis
- Asset managers: JPMorgan AM, Natixis Global Associates, Union Investment, HSBC IM, Allianz GI, DWS
-Processing service providers: Citigroup, Schroders, Société Générale, CACEIS, State Street,
- Stock exchanges: Euronext, Bourse de Luxembourg
2 Source : EFAMA statistics
3 Source FERI statistics and FERI 2006 European Fund Buyer Survey. A rising proportion of UCITS are also sold outside the EU (around 15% of net sales)
4 Source: CRA study September 2006 - average production and distribution costs for equity funds in a sample of EU markets . CRA estimated that total production and distribution costs amounted to ~150 bp on average in a sample of EU countries. The study did not cover the whole value chain (eg trading costs are not included). We were not able to verify the validity of these costs or the methodology used, but these results give an indication of the breakdown of costs.

Asset management costs comprise: cash management, research, asset allocation, operational asset management and dealing decisions. Processing and administration costs cover fund and client administration, regulatory compliance of the fund and management company overheads and systems. Distribution and marketing costs cover new product development, compensation to distributors, documentation, promotional activity…

tags-label Tags : UCITS Directive, Non harmonised funds, TA, Depositaries, UCITS, Automation, Standardisation,
tags-label Type : Executive summary
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
UCITS (7)
Eurofi Report 5 Regulatory improvements Investment products type-docpdf type-doc178.53 Ko calendar-select06-02-2009 id = 7
document Summarized Text :
The1current financial crisis and the alleged Madoff fraud have revealed risks and gaps in investment products regulation and supervision that need to be solved at the EU and possibly global regulatory levels with clarified and more harmonized responsibilities and liabilities along the fund value chain. Assessing further harmonisation opportunities of the framework of non UCITS investment products should also be a major objective for the Commission following a clarification of the needs of retail and institutional investors.

1. Clarifying responsibilities along the fund value chain and launching a harmonization effort across Europe are major priorities:

tags-label Tags : UCITS Directive, Asset Management, Non harmonised funds, TA, Depositaries, UCITS, Competing products, Risk management,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Session 05B EU Priorities for UCTS & Securities Infrastructures type-docpdf type-doc169.35 Ko calendar-select09-11-2008 id = 23
document Summarized Text :
Eurofi 2008 - Thursday 11/09/08 Session [5B] - EU PRIORITIES FOR INVESTMENT FUNDS AND EU SECURITIES INFRASTRUCTURES: Evolution of the UCITS regulatory framework, remaining challenges for securities infrastructures

The Panel
Moderators: Piia-Noora Kauppi, MEP, Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, European Parliament; Wolf Klinz, MEP, Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, European Parliament Panellists: Marc Raynaud, Global Head of Mutual Fund Distribution, BNP Paribas Investment Partners; David Wright, Deputy Director General, DG Internal Market and Services, European Commission Carlo Comporti, Secretary General, Committee of European Securities Regulators (CESR); Gertrude Tumpel-Gugerell, Member of the Executive Board, European Central Bank (ECB); Alain Closier, Global Head of Securities Services, Société Générale;

The Debate
The non-harmonised market was growing considerably faster than harmonised funds, commented Wolf Klinz, MEP, Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, European Parliament, the moderator, opening the debate. UCITS funds were set up for the retail investor and yet a quarter of them were being sold to institutions. This suggested the need for more instruments to be eligible for inclusion, he said.
In addition, the brand had proved successful in places such as the Far East and Latin America, but competition within the European fund industry was hampering efforts to expand the brand even further. “With problems such as manual processing, we are unable to exploit economies of scale,” argued Mr Klinz.

tags-label Tags : Investment services and regulated markets (MiFID), Non harmonised funds, UCITS, Competing products, Custody, T2S, Collateral, Code of conduct, Consolidation,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
EUROFI PRIORITIES FOR ECOFIN type-docpdf type-doc115.97 Ko calendar-select10-09-2008 id = 37
document Summarized Text :
Eurofi, the dedicated think-tank for the integration of financial services in Europe, is organizing a conference on September 11 and 12 to discuss the proposals put forward by the financial industry at the ECOFIN, set against a global crisis with leaders facing new challenges.

This crisis shows that the supervision of cross-border financial groups must be adapted in order to factor in the rapid spillover of risks, the internationalization of their activities and the centralized organization of their financial management and strategy.
That is why Eurofi is proposing a series of pragmatic measures to improve the supervision of these groups and the prevention of crises, notably including:
- The establishment of colleges grouping the European supervisors concerned together, which would be given a similar mandate in order to ensure identical protection for all of the group’s European customers;
- A specific role entrusted to the supervisor from the home European country, ensuring that decisions relating to capital requirements and the organization of supervision can be taken quickly and effectively, and that information is immediately made available to all the other supervisors;
- The mission entrusted to the European supervisor committees (CEBS and CEIOPS), to facilitate the resolution of possible differences of views between supervisors from a given college and check that the conditions for fair competition between the financial institutions are brought about.

tags-label Tags : CEIOPS, Occupational Pensions, Solvency II directive, Microcredit, UCITS Directive, Management company, UCITS, Cross-border fund processing, Prudential rules, Accounting rules, CEBS, Regulation, Supervision,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
UCITS Regulatory framework type-docpdf type-doc122.45 Ko calendar-select10-09-2008 id = 49
document Summarized Text :
There is a strong agreement among industry stakeholders on the added value of the proposals made for reviewing the UCITS Directive (UCITS IV) ie streamlining of the notification process, fund mergers, pooling / master feeder techniques, Key Three main conditions indeed need to be fulfilled for a MC to manage UCITS funds on a remote basis:

- UCITS funds receiving services from a MC based abroad must continue to be managed and administered by the MC in compliance with the relevant rules of the UCITS domicile
- A clear definition of the respective responsibilities of the Fund regulator and of the MC regulator must be possible as well as cooperation mechanisms between regulators and interfaces between regulators, the MC and the depositary
-The conditions required for passporting MC collective portfolio services should generate sufficient economic benefits and not lead to regressions in Member States (MSs) where administrative activities can be widely outsourced on a cross-border basis
The assessments conducted by the Eurofi working group show that there are no major technical obstacles at present for MCs to fulfill these conditions on a remote basis with modern communication means. Most administrative activities involve data processing that can be operationally conducted cross-border. In addition initial proposals were made to define a framework of responsibilities ensuring that investor protection is safeguarded in this context. These principles could be defined at Level I of the Directive and further detailed at Level II:

-The current responsibilities of the Management Company and the Depositary should remain unchanged
- Supervisory responsibilities should be allocated between the Fund regulator and the Management Company regulator with leadership given to the Fund regulator for matters regarding the Fund
-A framework should be defined for cooperation, arbitration and escalation mechanisms between supervisors, applicable to the authorization process and to the on-going monitoring of the fund3.

But a detailed operational analysis of the way administrative activities are conducted on a day-to-day basis shows that the current differences in local laws across EU countries and specific local requirements that impact administrative activities of the fund – eg NAV calculation or fund accounting with differing splits of responsibilities between the MC and the depositary, differing methods, delegation rules etc... - make the remote performance of some services and the maintenance of expertise more complex in a cross-border environment.

3 This should be facilitated by the rules for supervisory cooperation described in the UCITS IV proposal Investor Document and supervisory cooperation. On the other hand the Management Company Passport (MCP) concept has remained controversial particularly for contractual funds which are not legal entities (eg FCPs). The concept of the MCP already exists in the current UCITS III framework but is limited to corporate funds (eg SICAV which have a legal personality).

In July 2008 CESR was requested by the Commission to provide advice on remaining technical questions that need to be addressed when introducing a MCP. Eurofi and a working group composed of industry representatives from all parts of the value chain, ie asset managers, depositaries and administrative agents operating in different EU financial centers1, assessed during the first semester of 2008 the practical conditions for UCITS funds to receive services from a remote management company (MC) based in a foreign EU member state. Our evaluation has particularly focused on the administrative activities performed by the MC2 which are at the heart of the current debate evolving around investor protection and economic issues.

Our overall conclusion at this stage is that implementing a MCP is a feasible and economically attractive objective to improve the efficiency of the EU funds industry but should be implemented with a staged approach. We consider that conditions for Management Companies (MC) to operate cross-border could be significantly optimized in the short run with an adequate framework of responsibilities defined at Level I. MCs should in particular no longer be required to maintain a capitalized legal entity in the fund domicile to perform their activity which would lead to significant potential savings...

tags-label Tags : UCITS Directive, Management company, UCITS,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Session 01A Innovation in EU Funds type-docpdf type-doc168.9 Ko calendar-select05-02-2009 id = 11
document Summarized Text :
Eurofi 2008 - Thursday 11/09/08 Session [1A] - TAKING INTO ACCOUNT INNOVATION IN THE EU INVESTMENT FUND REGULATORY FRAMEWORK: Keeping up with innovation in secured conditions through potential evolutions in the product or distribution framework of investment funds. The Panel Moderator: Marc Truchet, Senior fellow consultant, Eurofi Panellists: Niall Bohan, Head of Unit, Asset Management, DG Internal Market and Services, European Commission; Alain Leclair, Chairman, French Asset Management Association; Wolfgang Mansfeld, Member of the Executive Board, Union Asset Management Holding AG, Chaiman, BVI; Jean-Paul Mazoyer, General Management Committee Member in Charge of Development, Crédit Agricole Asset Management; Lisa Rabbe, Managing Director, Goldman Sachs International

tags-label Tags : UCITS Directive, Private placement, Non harmonised funds, UCITS, Competing products, Hedge funds,
tags-label Type : Compte-rendu
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Investment funds Innovation Executive Summary type-docpdf type-doc119.8 Ko calendar-select11-09-2008 id = 42
document Summarized Text :
Financial innovation is constant in the investment funds market, driven by the need for the industry to continue to ensure differentiation and find new sources of performance and revenue and by investor demand eg for new types of products less correlated with the stock exchange. Producers use different approaches to answer these needs: diversification of asset (eg new geographies or industrial sectors), new investment techniques or strategies (eg hedge funds with the objective to offer “absolute return” regardless of market conditions), new product concepts (eg guaranteed products or lifestyle funds for retail investors).

Local regulatory product frameworks have been evolving over time to accommodate these evolutions and needs. The EU regulatory framework also needs to keep pace with these evolutions to create a secure framework for the passportability of new products across European countries and to create innovative product labels that can be exported successfully out of Europe. The UCITS Directive, which is the only existing European product legislation for investment funds has evolved over time despite the constraints of the legislative process, since the UCITS directive was not drafted following the Lamfalussy principles.

The list of eligible assets allowed in the UCITS framework has been expanded over time to keep track with financial innovation. But the increasing volume of investment funds and investment products (eg certificates, notes…) that do not fall under the UCITS label and the high proportion of UCITS funds sold to institutional investors (25% of AuM according to the EU Commission) illustrate the limits of the present framework.

tags-label Tags : UCITS Directive, UCITS, Competing products, Hedge funds, Private equity funds,
tags-label Type : Executive summary
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Investment funds Executive summary type-docpdf type-doc812.27 Ko calendar-select03-12-2007 id = 92
document Summarized Text :
Optimising cross-border distribution and processing of investment funds in the EU

Eurofi conference: 4 December 2007 EU Parliament

Executive summary of the Eurofi initiative
1. Eurofi worked over the last 12 months with a representative group of fund industry leaders covering the different steps of the value chain1, to make proposals for improving cross-border fund distribution and processing in the EU: UCITS funds are a booming market in Europe:
2 • At the end of 2006 €7550 billion were managed through investment funds domiciled in the EU representing 34% of the worldwide fund industry. UCITS funds represented 79% of this total with €5900 billion managed through approximately 31000 funds.
• The market growth has been very strong for UCITS and sustained over the recent years: +80% growth between 2003 vs 2006 and a two-fold increase since 1998. Cross-border and third-party fund distribution is developing in the EU3:
• Cross-border funds (ie registered in 5 countries or more) represented around 30% of net asset flows in 2005 and intra-EU cross-border fund transactions are considered to represent around 20% of total transactions in the EU
• Major distributors evaluated that in 2006, 55% of their activity was third-party with 35% in foreign funds. Many operational and legal obstacles limit at present the efficiency of UCITS cross-border distribution and processing in the EU. These obstacles are becoming increasingly important to address as cross-border and open architecture distribution develop. Solving these inefficiencies could further enhance the competitiveness of the EU funds industry by reducing complexity and eliminating certain operational risks and extra-costs. The EU Commission has focused the proposals made in the White Paper on activities related to regulatory compliance, management company overhead and asset management which are considered to represent around 15% of total costs and on some components of distribution (total distribution costs were evaluated to represent 60% of total costs)4.

1 The following institutions were part of the Eurofi working group co-chaired by W. Klinz (MEP), E. Corley (Allianz GI) and A. Papiasse (BNP Paribas) : - Banks (including asset management and processing entities): BNP Paribas, Unicredit Group / Pioneer AM / Bank Austria Creditanstalt, Crédit Agricole, Fortis
- Asset managers: JPMorgan AM, Natixis Global Associates, Union Investment, HSBC IM, Allianz GI, DWS
-Processing service providers: Citigroup, Schroders, Société Générale, CACEIS, State Street,
- Stock exchanges: Euronext, Bourse de Luxembourg
2 Source : EFAMA statistics
3 Source FERI statistics and FERI 2006 European Fund Buyer Survey. A rising proportion of UCITS are also sold outside the EU (around 15% of net sales)
4 Source: CRA study September 2006 - average production and distribution costs for equity funds in a sample of EU markets . CRA estimated that total production and distribution costs amounted to ~150 bp on average in a sample of EU countries. The study did not cover the whole value chain (eg trading costs are not included). We were not able to verify the validity of these costs or the methodology used, but these results give an indication of the breakdown of costs.

Asset management costs comprise: cash management, research, asset allocation, operational asset management and dealing decisions. Processing and administration costs cover fund and client administration, regulatory compliance of the fund and management company overheads and systems. Distribution and marketing costs cover new product development, compensation to distributors, documentation, promotional activity…

tags-label Tags : UCITS Directive, Non harmonised funds, TA, Depositaries, UCITS, Automation, Standardisation,
tags-label Type : Executive summary
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Competing products (4)
Eurofi Report 5 Regulatory improvements Investment products type-docpdf type-doc178.53 Ko calendar-select06-02-2009 id = 7
document Summarized Text :
The1current financial crisis and the alleged Madoff fraud have revealed risks and gaps in investment products regulation and supervision that need to be solved at the EU and possibly global regulatory levels with clarified and more harmonized responsibilities and liabilities along the fund value chain. Assessing further harmonisation opportunities of the framework of non UCITS investment products should also be a major objective for the Commission following a clarification of the needs of retail and institutional investors.

1. Clarifying responsibilities along the fund value chain and launching a harmonization effort across Europe are major priorities:

tags-label Tags : UCITS Directive, Asset Management, Non harmonised funds, TA, Depositaries, UCITS, Competing products, Risk management,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Session 05B EU Priorities for UCTS & Securities Infrastructures type-docpdf type-doc169.35 Ko calendar-select09-11-2008 id = 23
document Summarized Text :
Eurofi 2008 - Thursday 11/09/08 Session [5B] - EU PRIORITIES FOR INVESTMENT FUNDS AND EU SECURITIES INFRASTRUCTURES: Evolution of the UCITS regulatory framework, remaining challenges for securities infrastructures

The Panel
Moderators: Piia-Noora Kauppi, MEP, Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, European Parliament; Wolf Klinz, MEP, Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, European Parliament Panellists: Marc Raynaud, Global Head of Mutual Fund Distribution, BNP Paribas Investment Partners; David Wright, Deputy Director General, DG Internal Market and Services, European Commission Carlo Comporti, Secretary General, Committee of European Securities Regulators (CESR); Gertrude Tumpel-Gugerell, Member of the Executive Board, European Central Bank (ECB); Alain Closier, Global Head of Securities Services, Société Générale;

The Debate
The non-harmonised market was growing considerably faster than harmonised funds, commented Wolf Klinz, MEP, Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, European Parliament, the moderator, opening the debate. UCITS funds were set up for the retail investor and yet a quarter of them were being sold to institutions. This suggested the need for more instruments to be eligible for inclusion, he said.
In addition, the brand had proved successful in places such as the Far East and Latin America, but competition within the European fund industry was hampering efforts to expand the brand even further. “With problems such as manual processing, we are unable to exploit economies of scale,” argued Mr Klinz.

tags-label Tags : Investment services and regulated markets (MiFID), Non harmonised funds, UCITS, Competing products, Custody, T2S, Collateral, Code of conduct, Consolidation,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Session 01A Innovation in EU Funds type-docpdf type-doc168.9 Ko calendar-select05-02-2009 id = 11
document Summarized Text :
Eurofi 2008 - Thursday 11/09/08 Session [1A] - TAKING INTO ACCOUNT INNOVATION IN THE EU INVESTMENT FUND REGULATORY FRAMEWORK: Keeping up with innovation in secured conditions through potential evolutions in the product or distribution framework of investment funds. The Panel Moderator: Marc Truchet, Senior fellow consultant, Eurofi Panellists: Niall Bohan, Head of Unit, Asset Management, DG Internal Market and Services, European Commission; Alain Leclair, Chairman, French Asset Management Association; Wolfgang Mansfeld, Member of the Executive Board, Union Asset Management Holding AG, Chaiman, BVI; Jean-Paul Mazoyer, General Management Committee Member in Charge of Development, Crédit Agricole Asset Management; Lisa Rabbe, Managing Director, Goldman Sachs International

tags-label Tags : UCITS Directive, Private placement, Non harmonised funds, UCITS, Competing products, Hedge funds,
tags-label Type : Compte-rendu
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Investment funds Innovation Executive Summary type-docpdf type-doc119.8 Ko calendar-select11-09-2008 id = 42
document Summarized Text :
Financial innovation is constant in the investment funds market, driven by the need for the industry to continue to ensure differentiation and find new sources of performance and revenue and by investor demand eg for new types of products less correlated with the stock exchange. Producers use different approaches to answer these needs: diversification of asset (eg new geographies or industrial sectors), new investment techniques or strategies (eg hedge funds with the objective to offer “absolute return” regardless of market conditions), new product concepts (eg guaranteed products or lifestyle funds for retail investors).

Local regulatory product frameworks have been evolving over time to accommodate these evolutions and needs. The EU regulatory framework also needs to keep pace with these evolutions to create a secure framework for the passportability of new products across European countries and to create innovative product labels that can be exported successfully out of Europe. The UCITS Directive, which is the only existing European product legislation for investment funds has evolved over time despite the constraints of the legislative process, since the UCITS directive was not drafted following the Lamfalussy principles.

The list of eligible assets allowed in the UCITS framework has been expanded over time to keep track with financial innovation. But the increasing volume of investment funds and investment products (eg certificates, notes…) that do not fall under the UCITS label and the high proportion of UCITS funds sold to institutional investors (25% of AuM according to the EU Commission) illustrate the limits of the present framework.

tags-label Tags : UCITS Directive, UCITS, Competing products, Hedge funds, Private equity funds,
tags-label Type : Executive summary
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Hedge funds (4)
AIFM type-docpdf type-doc141.32 Ko calendar-select07-04-2010 id = 132
document Summarized Text :

Proposals regarding proportionality principles and the obligations of the depositary in the AIFM Directive

These proposals for adjustments to the Gauzès report on the AIFM Directive have been drafted by Eurofi with the input of a group of representative asset managers, custodians, valuators, prime brokers and insurance groups operating in the EU. Their objectives are to better take into account certain operational constraints and improve the allocation of responsibilities in the requirements of the Directive while maintaining its coherence and initial objectives.

The following players contributed to this initiative: Amundi Asset Management (formerly Crédit Agricole AM), AXA Investment Managers, The Bank of New York Mellon, BNP Paribas Investment Partners and Securities Services, CACEIS, Citi, Deutsche Bank, Fidelity International, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Hedge Fund Standard Board (HFSB), MidEuropa, Pioneer, Prudential, Société Générale and Union Investment.


tags-label Tags : Non harmonised funds, Open ended real estate funds, Depositaries, Hedge funds, Private equity funds,
tags-label Type : Compte-rendu
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Session 01A Innovation in EU Funds type-docpdf type-doc168.9 Ko calendar-select05-02-2009 id = 11
document Summarized Text :
Eurofi 2008 - Thursday 11/09/08 Session [1A] - TAKING INTO ACCOUNT INNOVATION IN THE EU INVESTMENT FUND REGULATORY FRAMEWORK: Keeping up with innovation in secured conditions through potential evolutions in the product or distribution framework of investment funds. The Panel Moderator: Marc Truchet, Senior fellow consultant, Eurofi Panellists: Niall Bohan, Head of Unit, Asset Management, DG Internal Market and Services, European Commission; Alain Leclair, Chairman, French Asset Management Association; Wolfgang Mansfeld, Member of the Executive Board, Union Asset Management Holding AG, Chaiman, BVI; Jean-Paul Mazoyer, General Management Committee Member in Charge of Development, Crédit Agricole Asset Management; Lisa Rabbe, Managing Director, Goldman Sachs International

tags-label Tags : UCITS Directive, Private placement, Non harmonised funds, UCITS, Competing products, Hedge funds,
tags-label Type : Compte-rendu
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Session 06 Learning from the Financial Crisis type-docpdf type-doc260.58 Ko calendar-select09-11-2008 id = 25
document Summarized Text :
Eurofi 2008 - Thursday 11/09/08 Session [6] - LEARNING FROM THE FINANCIAL CRISIS: KEY DRIVERS AND EU INSTITUTIONS INITIATIVES for reducing procyclical effects; For an effective surveillance of off-balance sheet risks; For an appropriate setting of the banks’ amount of prudential own funds; For providing reliable information to investors (rating agencies, market information…)

The Panel
Moderator: Jacques de Larosière, Co-President, Eurofi Panellists: Joaquín Almunia, EU Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs Fernando Teixeira dos Santos, Portuguese Minister of State and for Finance Dominique Hoenn, Senior Adviser, BNP Paribas Daniel Daianu, MEP, Committee on Budgets, European Parliament Deven Sharma, President, Standard & Poor’s Nout Wellink, Governor, De Nederlandsche Bank and Chairman of the Basel Committee Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, Former Italian Minister of the Economy and Finance

The Debate
Joaquín Almunia, EU Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs said the main question was how to restore stability in our economies after more than one year of turmoil. “This turmoil has posed serious challenges to the financial industry and our economies. The experience has been instructive, but after more than one year of turbulence, we now have to turn lessons into action.” The European Union had not been passive. It acted quickly last autumn, adopting a road map of policy actions covering transparency, valuations, supervision and market function, including the regulatory system.

tags-label Tags : Procyclicality, Transparency, Rating agencies, Hedge funds, Prudential rules, Crisis,
tags-label Type : Event Report
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Investment funds Innovation Executive Summary type-docpdf type-doc119.8 Ko calendar-select11-09-2008 id = 42
document Summarized Text :
Financial innovation is constant in the investment funds market, driven by the need for the industry to continue to ensure differentiation and find new sources of performance and revenue and by investor demand eg for new types of products less correlated with the stock exchange. Producers use different approaches to answer these needs: diversification of asset (eg new geographies or industrial sectors), new investment techniques or strategies (eg hedge funds with the objective to offer “absolute return” regardless of market conditions), new product concepts (eg guaranteed products or lifestyle funds for retail investors).

Local regulatory product frameworks have been evolving over time to accommodate these evolutions and needs. The EU regulatory framework also needs to keep pace with these evolutions to create a secure framework for the passportability of new products across European countries and to create innovative product labels that can be exported successfully out of Europe. The UCITS Directive, which is the only existing European product legislation for investment funds has evolved over time despite the constraints of the legislative process, since the UCITS directive was not drafted following the Lamfalussy principles.

The list of eligible assets allowed in the UCITS framework has been expanded over time to keep track with financial innovation. But the increasing volume of investment funds and investment products (eg certificates, notes…) that do not fall under the UCITS label and the high proportion of UCITS funds sold to institutional investors (25% of AuM according to the EU Commission) illustrate the limits of the present framework.

tags-label Tags : UCITS Directive, UCITS, Competing products, Hedge funds, Private equity funds,
tags-label Type : Executive summary
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Private equity funds (2)
AIFM type-docpdf type-doc141.32 Ko calendar-select07-04-2010 id = 132
document Summarized Text :

Proposals regarding proportionality principles and the obligations of the depositary in the AIFM Directive

These proposals for adjustments to the Gauzès report on the AIFM Directive have been drafted by Eurofi with the input of a group of representative asset managers, custodians, valuators, prime brokers and insurance groups operating in the EU. Their objectives are to better take into account certain operational constraints and improve the allocation of responsibilities in the requirements of the Directive while maintaining its coherence and initial objectives.

The following players contributed to this initiative: Amundi Asset Management (formerly Crédit Agricole AM), AXA Investment Managers, The Bank of New York Mellon, BNP Paribas Investment Partners and Securities Services, CACEIS, Citi, Deutsche Bank, Fidelity International, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Hedge Fund Standard Board (HFSB), MidEuropa, Pioneer, Prudential, Société Générale and Union Investment.


tags-label Tags : Non harmonised funds, Open ended real estate funds, Depositaries, Hedge funds, Private equity funds,
tags-label Type : Compte-rendu
navigation-270Download Printer_16_2Print mail-open-document-textSend
Investment funds Innovation Executive Summary type-docpdf type-doc119.8 Ko calendar-select11-09-2008 id = 42
document Summarized Text :
Financial innovation is constant in the investment funds market, driven by the need for the industry to continue to ensure differentiation and find new sources of performance and revenue and by investor demand eg for new types of products less correlated with the stock exchange. Producers use different approaches to answer these needs: diversification of asset (eg new geographies or industrial sect