The UK Investment Management Association last week released its response to the European Securities and Markets Authoritys (ESMA) paper on guidelines for UCITS Exchange-Traded Funds and structured UCITS.
The body questions ESMAs rationale for singling out certain types of UCITS products while excluding others, such as non-UCITS ETFs.
Commenting, Julie Patterson, director at the IMA, said: UCITS are already subject to detailed regulation. Regulatory intervention should happen only where there is a clear market failure, but we see no evidence of this.
We agree with ESMA’s proposed approach to improve disclosures and to provide clearer information for investors via the new Key Investor Information Document. For UK-authorized funds, such disclosures are already required. We urge national regulators to adopt consistent implementation and to enforce the UCITS rules.
If it is thought that certain areas of the UCITS product rules should be reviewed, then it is essential that all retail investment products are considered. The European Commissions PRIPs (Packaged Retail Investment Products) initiative seeks to achieve just that, but we are concerned that it is being treated with lower priority than it warrants.
(JDC)