EFAMA has released a joint statement together with AFME (Association for Financial Markets in Europe), EFSA and the Nordic Securities Association on significant issues with the supervision of market data costs.

EFAMA has released a joint statement together with AFME (Association for Financial Markets in Europe), EFSA and the Nordic Securities Association on significant issues with the supervision of market data costs.

Clarification is urgently needed to enable rather than restrict EU sustainable investment
The EU has been at the forefront of green bond issuances, demonstrating strong growth and commitment to sustainable finance. However, ESMA’s new Fund Naming Guidelines create inconsistencies with other sustainable finance regulations, like the EU Green Bond Standard, which could hamper the growth of the corporate green bond sector.
The Associations fully support ESMA’s aim of providing for an adequate level of transparency. This will be beneficial to investors, liquidity providers, other intermediaries, as well as issuers, across the entire range of different and diverse bond classes.
EFAMA publishes its latest Monthly Statistical Release for July 2024.
Regulatory clarity required to sustain further growth
This report looks specifically at the evolving trends of the equity asset class of sustainable UCITS, whose share is the highest (53%) in total sustainable UCITS funds. It highlights their role as investment vehicles in facilitating the green transition. The universe of sustainable equity UCITS funds is defined based on Morningstar’s classification of sustainable financial instruments1. This means funds must claim to have a sustainability objective, and/or use binding ESG criteria for their investment selection.
EFAMA has some concerns with ESMA’s clarifications. In the consultation paper (CP), ESMA seems to have a very broad interpretation of the ‘multilateral systems’ definition under MiFID II and states that ‘systems where trading interests can interact but where the execution of transactions is formally undertaken outside the system still qualify as a multilateral system and should be required to seek authorisation’ (paragraph 36).
We disagree with an extension of its scope to UCITS’ and AIFs’ management companies to the scope of the reporting requirements imposed by MiFIR, Art. 26. This extension would be in breach of the principle of proportionality, as:
Article 51(5) of the BMR provides that, unless the Commission has adopted an equivalence decision in relation to a particular third country, a third country administrator has been recognised or a third country benchmark has been endorsed, EU supervised entities may only use a third country benchmark in financial instruments, financial contracts and measurements of the performance of an investment fund that already reference the relevant benchmark prior to 31 December 2021.
EFAMA is grateful for the opportunity to comment on some messages included in the aforementioned roadmap. We believe that these comments should be made clear for all persons interested, especially to those who would like to participate in the upcoming public consultation.
Asset managers represent an important group of benchmark users, either in the case of index funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs) - where benchmarks are used as a target for index tracking funds - or in the case of the evaluation of an active manager’s performance - where the fund performance is measured against a selected index or a set of indices.
EFAMA, the voice of the European investment management industry, believes that, for retail clients, standardised disclosure of information can improve the comparability of financial products that promote environmental and/or social characteristics or have a sustainable objective. It will also contribute to the broader policy objectives of the Sustainable Finance Disclosures Regulation (SFDR) to enhance transparency towards end-investors, hold market participants accountable and fight greenwashing.

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