The AMF modifies its doctrine on fund movement and marketing commissions


As part of a European supervision exercise, the Financial Markets Authority (AMF) examined the practices of management companies in terms of defining and monitoring the costs and fees associated with the management of UCITS. The exercise, for example, made it possible to highlight two practices that are relatively uncommon, but open to criticism. For 14 funds out of the 2,050 or so analyzed, the AMF noted a composition of the portfolio very close to that of the index, suggesting a rather passive management style, even though the level of ongoing costs observed was high.

It also identified, in the case of 7 funds, a very high level of transaction fees, greater than 2.5% of net assets. In both cases, the level of expenses strongly hinders the achievement of management objectives as well as the possibility of outperformance relative to the benchmark index.

A change in the rules in force has therefore been decided. The first change concerns the prohibition of movement commissions. It aims to eliminate the possibility for managers of UCITS and AIFs to benefit from turnover commissions, with the exception of turnover commissions on real estate assets. To allow management companies to adapt their system, these changes will apply from 1 January 2026. A change to the AMF general regulations was approved by order of the Minister for the Economy, Finance and Recovery published on May 19, 2022. With this in mind, the AMF will modify its doctrine to specify the implementation of this change.

The second change concerns the marketing of active funds which would have high fees given the proximity of their performance to that of their benchmark indicator, as well as passive funds with high fees. With regard to active funds, ISPs must set up procedures in order to be able to identify funds with high fees in relation to their tracking error vis–vis their benchmark index. As for passive funds, the AMF also specifies that ISPs must have policies and procedures allowing them to compare the level of fees of funds with a passive management objective with those of comparable funds in order to determine whether equivalent collective investments that are less costly are likely to match the profile of their client.



Source link -88