It can remain for years in this quiet StateThe kitchen is not the slightly and it is as well like thatA way to campaign to lower costs but also hoped reach new audiencesThe company grows more opening abroad increasesThese figures seem fairly little credible2 despite the underperformance of last springHowever in this total the momentum portfolio iThey are not in their balance sheet the assets of their clientsgive more meaning to his professional life2 billion equity participation in FaceBookThe most ambitious regulatory initiative for the financial industry over the past decades (), is also causing concerns most actors. The sprawling markets of financial instruments (see box) or MIF directive aims to regulate not actors but investment services. It is a framework that wants to change the background: are multiple and detailed obligations advanced formalism to discipline practices and protect the final investor, object of all his attention. The text is a clever compromise between a consumer and liberal finance vision: liberalize markets, Yes, but by protecting the investor. "The question of what is the duty of a provider of investment for its customer services, MIF directive responds that it depends on both the services provided and the nature or status of the client", summarizes Pierre-Yves Berthon, Secretary General of the French Association of financial management (AFG). The rules of good conduct will differ depending on trades (reception and transmission of orders or RTO, management...) over a common set of shared principles.
For management companies, only warrants are covered by the scope of the MIF, the UCITS remaining under coordinated funds or Ucits directive Cup. However, in France, there is a unique status of portfolio management company that includes both management individualized under mandate and that of coordinated UCITS. A status that the MFA wants to step challenge. Therefore, managers of these assets on these activities will have to juggle the two directives.
Compromise text, the MIF "is not in itself a revolution, many of its principles are already contained in our texts, which the General regulations of the AMF, says Pauline Leclerc-glorious, head of the service providers and savings to the AMF products." "It details many more requirements destined for investment services providers". This is the case for the selection of intermediaries or the information destined for customers, including the rules and the level of protection will depend on their membership in three categories (see page 34).
A very broad field
The news will be integrated into the General Regulation: classification of investors, conditions of validity of the wages paid to third parties, the famous "inducements" or benefits, application of the rules of the reception and transmission of orders for subscriptions-redemptions of shares in UCITS... All of which will have consequences on the distribution of funds.
The principle of proportionality appears also in the MIF to as the "requirements organisational relating to compliance, internal audit, management of risk or procedures related to the business organization may be modulated according to the nature, scale and complexity of the activity, as well as the nature of the range of services and investment activities"explains Catherine Jasserand, Assistant to the Director of International Affairs of the AFG.
Kneaded good principles, this directive only to some would call of unrealistic, recalled the good memory of managers that had apparently ignored it or not in not seized all of the issues. Plunging into meanders, they realized that it encompassed a very large field and that pushed up to their ultimate logic, some points could have a major impact on the evolution of their sector. Where, at a time, feelings of lack of preparation or improvisation and dismay that emerge in a sector which still wondered (read below).
Areas of shadow and uncertainties
Because there are still areas of shadow and uncertainty on matters as fundamental as the best execution of orders and incentive pay. Ambiguities should be lifted as quickly as possible by the Committee of European regulators (CESR) so as not to delay a sector which is already not in advance. CESR should render its verdict in a month or two. Regulators to subsequently endorse these recommendations form such as codes of good conduct.
It would appear however that five years of intense negotiations with the representatives of the industry have failed to converge on a form is successful and satisfying on a number of aspects which, unfortunately, can have an impact on the real level of protection that can be hoped", said Jean René Giraud, Director of development and associate researcher at the Edhec Risk and Asset Management Research Centre (read his interview page 33). For some practitioners, "MIF directive is very idealistic and often ignores economic logic and development of the industry of the European management models." "It is the centre of its concerns the final investor, who is entranced information without being sure that he may well treat them all and that it was really useful in all cases", judge Alain Leclair, President of the AFG.
