FCA Approves BNY Mellon’s AIF Trustee and Depository Services

The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has formally approved BNY Mellon to provide trust and depository services to alternative investment funds (AIFs) under the Alternative Investment Fund Manager Directive (AIFMD).

The approval means BNY Mellon is now authorized as an AIFMD depository in the U.K., Ireland, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. It comes only six days prior to the July 22 deadline for EU-based AIFMs seeking to market their EU AIFs via the Directive’s pan-European marketing passport to have submitted their AIFMD authorisation applications.

Head of trustee & depository services for Europe, Middle East & Africa at BNY Mellon, Peter Craft, comments, “AIFMD has been a major focus for BNY Mellon over the past 18 months as we have been ensuring that clients are ready for the July 22 deadline. We are already servicing a number of large global fund managers – who have been approved by the FCA as AIFMs, with BNY Mellon as their nominated depositary – under the terms of the Directive. By the time we hit the July 22 deadline, we will have been able to on-board the vast majority of our 70-plus AIF clients.”

Hani Kablawi, EMEA head of Asset Servicing at BNY Mellon, adds: “We were among the first out of the blocks to establish the prime broker agreements stipulated by AIFMD and to roll-out enhanced systems enabling the required functionality around oversight, monitoring and reconciliation. We were also at the forefront when it came to building the feeds – from more than 20 external data providers – needed to take in the data that will allow us to discharge our duties as an AIFMD depositary.”