Le 30 novembre dernier l’AMAFI avait mis à disposition de ses adhérents son Guide de mise en œuvre des obligations MIF 2 d’informations sur les coûts et frais (AMAFI / 17-76).
Suite à la publication par l’ESMA, le 23 mars dernier, de nouvelles questions-réponses sur ce sujet, l’AMAFI a mis à jour ce Guide (AMAFI / 18-30) notamment pour tenir compte des éléments impactant la définition de la « relation continue » et la possibilité d’utiliser les données contenues dans le KID pour calculer les informations dues au titre de MIF 2.
Cette seconde version est disponible dans la partie « adhérents » du site
L'AMAFI et l'AFG publient un Guide pour la commercialisation des produits financiers sur indices ESG, mettant ainsi à votre disposition un standard de Place destiné à encadrer la commercialisation des produits financiers ayant pour sous-jacents des indices qui répondent à des problématiques ESG.
Ce Guide, mis en place suite à des échanges avec l’AMF, définit ainsi les conditions dans lesquelles des produits financiers (titres de créance ou fonds structurés) ayant pour sous-jacents des indices ESG peuvent bénéficier d’une approche différenciée concernant le décompte de mécanismes de complexité appliqué à l’indice en vertu du critère n°4 de la Position AMF n°2010-05. L’objectif est de pouvoir proposer aux investisseurs des produits structurés sur des thématiques inhérentes à l’intégration des préoccupations ESG (l’indice sélectionnant les actifs sur la base de « filtres ESG », tels que définis dans le Guide). Cette approche spécifique aux indices ESG est sans préjudice de l’attention particulière qui doit être apportée à l’intelligibilité de ces produits et la qualité de l’information présentée dans la documentation commerciale lorsqu’ils sont commercialisés auprès d’investisseurs non professionnels.
Le Guide AMAFI / AFG contribue ainsi, pour les producteurs et les distributeurs, à sécuriser la commercialisation de ces produits dès lors qu’ils répondent aux conditions fixées par ce Guide. Il témoigne de l’expertise et de l’avance de la Place de Paris en matière ESG et s’inscrit naturellement dans les travaux menés par l’ensemble des parties prenantes sur la finance durable.
Less than seven months before the UK leaves the EU, marking a change that will redraw Europe’s financial landscape, it is important that AMAFI can engage with European institutions in a manner commensurate with the challenges faced by its members and the wider Paris financial community. This was the reasoning behind the decision to set up a European Action Committee.
The Eurofi Forum held in Vienna in early September afforded the first opportunity to act on this resolve. AMAFI, represented by Stéphane Giordano and Arnaud Eard, together with members of the new committee, held talks with a number of important figures on the fringes of the public meetings. These figures included Martin Merlin, Director of the European Commission’s Directorate‑General for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union (DG FISMA), MEPs Pervenche Berès and Jakob von Weizsäcker, who sit on the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, as well as Zsofia Haraszti and Henrietta Olasz, Financial Services Representatives for Hungary. Discussions centred on four key issues for AMAFI, namely the review of the European Supervisory Authorities (AMAFI / 18-43), financing for small, medium and mid-market businesses (AMAFI / 18-44),, the review of the prudential framework for investment firms (AMAFI / 18-45) and Brexit (AMAFI / 18-46).
Amid persistent uncertainty over how Brexit is going to unfold, and with elections and new appointments ahead for the European institutions, the coming weeks will be devoted to establishing a detailed work programme, aimed in particular at stepping up contact with member states’ permanent representations.
As part of work led by the MiFIDVision platform (cf. Financial Newsletter No. 34), AMAFI carried out a study on the coverage of French stocks by investment research firms between end-2005 and end-2017 (AMAFI / 18-52).
Unsurprisingly, the findings point to a high correlation between market capitalisation and the number of analysts covering the firm. On average, firms with a market capitalisation of between €10 million and €150 million are covered by fewer than one analyst, while almost ten analysts cover firms with capitalisation of between €1 billion and €5 billion. Overall, coverage of firms with a capitalisation of less than €1 billion decreased between 2005 and 2017, with the average coverage rate for stocks with a market capitalisation of between €150 million and €1 billion falling from five to 3.5 analysts. Only the €10 million-€150 million cap category bucked the trend, as the arrival of new investment research firms in France over the 2007 – 2012 period offset the loss of long-standing providers, paving the way for increased coverage.
The study also highlighted the fact that research on small, medium and mid caps is essentially performed by local firms and highly concentrated. Another key finding was that changes in coverage for a given population of stocks is linked much more closely to “plastic” factors, such as the closure or creation of investment research firms, than to the number of stocks followed by firms, especially in the case of small caps. These findings are cause for concern in the MiFID 2 environment, illustrating the weak foundations underpinning coverage at a time when new research firms cannot always be guaranteed to emerge to compensate for the closure of existing providers. The withdrawal of a big player would increase attrition risk still further. At the end of the day, what is at stake is the market’s ability to provide small, medium and mid-market firms with financing at reasonable cost.
In recent months, the AMAFI has been actively participating in discussions on issues surrounding cyber-assets. In addition to engaging with the AMF on initial coin offerings (cf. Financial Newsletter No. 34), the association has been talking with the Treasury about subjects such as issuing and transferring minibonds and other unlisted securities via blockchain, creating a regime for token offerings, and setting up a secondary market for tokens.
Since the new PACTE legislation is supposed to include measures to address the secondary market question, the French Treasury asked AMAFI at the start of the summer to come up with some proposals. Discussions, which wrapped up in early September, were conducted by a group comprising members of the association alongside specialists in the new cyber-asset markets. The group put forward a number of proposals to regulate participants in the secondary market for these digital assets (AMAFI / 18-47). These included introducing a single cyber-asset company authorisation, which would entail compliance with general requirements relating to IT resilience for example and/or expertise in cyber-assets, as well as with specific requirements based on whether the firm plans to operate a cyber-asset trading platform or provide custody of cyber-assets for third parties.
AMAFI will continue exploring this subject, while keeping track of developments arising in connection with the PACTE legislation, since the National Assembly is proposing to amend this portion of the bill fairly substantially.
