AFME publishes revised Due Diligence Questionnaire

Due Diligence Questionnaire aims to harmonise and simplify the process of completing questionnaires for global custodians, sub custodians and banks that hold client money. 

By Richard Schwartz

The Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME) has published an updated version of its Due Diligence Questionnaire (DDQ) which harmonises and simplifies the process of completing questionnaires for global custodians, sub custodians and banks that hold client money. 

The aim of the document, now in its third iteration, is to reduce time and resources used by market participants to complete the annual due diligence process, which many sub-custodians saw as increasingly burdensome in terms of the resources it absorbed.

The original DDQ was produced by an AFME Post-Trade Board task force, working with Thomas Murray. The aim was to create a generic document that could be completed by a sub-custodian and then made available to its other clients. Over the past year, market participants have been submitting suggested revisions to the previous version and the task force, comprised of approximately twenty network managers, has been reviewing the submissions.

“Our thanks are due to the many throughout our industry who have contributed to the 2019 version,” said Alan Cameron, head of market strategy-brokers at BNP Paribas Securities Services and chair of the task force. “We are delighted that the AFME DDQ is being used so extensively. The 2019 version includes extended sections on client money and corporate and social responsibility, as requested by many AFME members.”

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