Bedeutung der Reverse Solicitation im grenzüberschreitenden Fondsvertrieb – Kommt ein neues Reporting?

Ende letzten Jahres hat die Europäische Wertpapier- und Marktaufsichtsbehörde (European Securities and Markets Authority – ESMA) Daten dazu veröffentlicht, in welchem Umfang über die sog. Reverse Solicitation in Fondsprodukte investiert wird. In diesem Beitrag wollen wir einen Blick darauf werfen, wie sich die sog. Reverse Solicitation vom klassischen Vertrieb unterscheidet und welche Daten es zu Reverse Solicitation gibt.

Fonds sind nichts Anderes als gebündeltes Kapital von Anlegern. Damit diese Gelder investieren können, müssen sie erst einmal von der Anlagemöglichkeit wissen und Zugriff auf die Fonds haben. Das geschieht, indem die Kapitalverwaltungsgesellschaft (KVG) ihre Produkte auf dem Markt anbietet, diese also vertreibt. Der Vertrieb ist aufsichtsrechtlich reguliert und als das Anbieten und Platzieren von Fondsanteilen oder –aktien definiert. Damit ein Fondsprodukt auf dem deutschen Markt vertrieben werden darf, muss die KVG bestimmte regulatorische Anforderungen erfüllen, z.B. dem Anleger bestimmte Informationen und Dokumente über ihr Produkt zur Verfügung stellen.

Vertriebsvorgaben gelten dabei nicht nur für deutsche Fonds, die auf dem deutschen Markt angeboten werden sollen. Aufsichtsrechtliche Vertriebsvorgaben gelten auch für EU-Fonds, die in Deutschland angeboten werden sollen. So muss bspw. eine luxemburgische KVG, die einen luxemburgischen Fonds auf dem deutschen Markt anbieten will, diese erfüllen. Gemeinsam ist diesen Vertriebskonstellationen, dass die Initiative von der KVG ausgeht; sie bietet ihre Fondsprodukte zur Zeichnung aktiv auf dem Markt an und möchte deutsche Anleger erreichen.

Allerdings: Viele Investoren, gerade institutionelle, wissen häufig genau, welche Anlagemöglichkeit sie suchen und wie diese ausgestaltet sein soll. Sie warten also nicht, bis ihnen auf dem Markt eine geeignete Investitionsmöglichkeit angeboten wird, sondern fragen diese aktiv selbst an. Hier geht die Investitionsinitiative also von dem Investor, und nicht von der KVG aus. Aufsichtsrechtlich liegt dann kein Vertrieb vor und die Vertriebsvorgaben finden keine Anwendung.

Entsprechendes gilt auch für grenzüberschreitende Konstellationen: Fragt z.B. ein deutscher Anleger ein irisches Fondsprodukt einer irischen KVG an, geht die Investitionsinitiative von ihm aus, einen aktiven Vertrieb der irischen KVG auf dem deutschen Markt gibt es in dieser Konstellation nicht. Der Anleger macht hier von seiner passiven Dienstleistungsfreiheit (sog. Reverse Solicitation) Gebrauch. Die passive Dienstleistungsfreiheit ist Teil der EU-Grundfreiheiten und wird durch die aufsichtsrechtliche Regulierung des Vertriebs nicht berührt. Sie schützt die Freiheit, dass ein Empfänger einer Dienstleistung (hier der deutsche Anleger) aus einem anderen Mitgliedstaat kommt (aus Sicht der irischen KVG also Deutschland) als der Dienstleister (in unserem Beispiel die irische KVG).

Lässt sich Kapital also ganz einfach über die passive Dienstleistungsfreiheit einsammeln und damit die aufsichtsrechtlichen Anforderungen an den Vertrieb umgehen? Könnten sich KVGen also stets darauf berufen, gar nichts selbst auf den Markt zugegangen zu sein, sondern dass die Initiative stets vom Anleger ausging? Hier ist Vorsicht geboten. Fondsanbieter sollten keine vollständigen Vertriebsmodelle auf die Reverse Solicitation stützen. Der gesetzliche Regelfall ist der Vertrieb, also, dass die KVG ihr Produkt aktiv auf dem Markt platziert. Ist es ausnahmsweise umgekehrt und der Investor kommt aktiv mit einer Investitionsanfrage auf den Anbieter zu, sollte die KVG sich (gegenüber der Aufsicht) absichern und das gut dokumentieren.

Auf Anfrage der EU-Kommission hat die ESMA bei den nationalen Aufsichtsbehörden nun eine Umfrage durchgeführt, in welchem Umfang über die sog. Reverse Solicitation in Fondsprodukte investiert wird. Interessant sind diese Daten für die EU z.B. deshalb, weil sie mit der AIFMD II jüngst ein Regelwerk verabschiedet hat, das den grenzüberschreitenden Fondsvertrieb erleichtern und vor allem vereinheitlichen soll (dazu haben wir bereits hier, hier und hier ausführlich berichtet). Die nationalen Aufsichtsbehörden verfügen laut ESMA jedoch nur vereinzelt über solche Daten. Laut der italienischen Aufsichtsbehörde Consob stammt ein Viertel des investierten Kapitals aus Reverse Solicitation, wovon wiederum 99% auf professionelle Investoren entfallen. In Zypern stammt laut CySEC 30% des von OGAW-KVGen und 50% des von AIF-KVGen genutzten Kapitals aus Reverse Solicitation. In Spanien hingegen geht man davon aus, dass lediglich ca. 1,3% des Kapital aus Reverse Solicitation stammen. Daten für Deutschland wurden nicht veröffentlicht.

Nach ihrer Umfrage kommt die ESMA zu dem Schluss, dass valide und permanente Daten über die Frage, wie viel Kapital für Fondsprodukte über den klassischen Vertrieb und über Reverse Solicitation eingesammelt wird, nur durch die Einführung eines neues Reporting gewährleisten werden. Konkrete Vorschläge für ein solches Reporting gibt es derzeit aber noch nicht. Es bleibt daher abzuwarten, ob die EU-Kommission den Vorschlag der ESMA aufgreifen wird, um sich ein genaueres Bild über die Bedeutung der Reverse Solicitation im grenzüberschreitenden Fondsvertrieb zu machen.

Building a Capital Markets Union for Europe: The Commission unveils new legislative proposals

Introduction

Back in 2015, the Commission has adopted its first Action Plan on Building a Capital Markets Union (CMU), whose main aim was to start the process of creation of a single capital market in the EU that would reduce existing market fragmentation and mobilise more funds for capital markets based financing of European businesses. Almost 5 years after publication of its first Action Plan, in September 2020 the Commission has unveiled its revised Action Plan on CMU, which was tailored in accordance with new economic priorities of the EU, recovery from the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic and transition to a digital and sustainable economy.

By a way of delivering on its commitments from the revised Action Plan, the Commission has published on 25 November 2021 a package of four legislative proposals that aim to contribute to achieving the CMU objectives and boost European capital markets.

The package contains the following legislative proposals:

  1. Regulation establishing a European Single Access point (ESAP)
  2. Regulation amending Regulation on European long-term investment funds (ELTIF)
  3. Directive amending the Alternative Investment Funds Managers Directive (AIFMD) and UCITS Directive
  4. Regulation amending the Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (MiFIR)

The main proposals contained in these proposed legislative acts can be summarised as follows:

The European Single Access Point

With the idea of creating a common source of public information about EU companies and investment products, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) shall establish the European Single Access Point (ESAP) by 2024. The information that will be publicly accessible on the ESAP will be collected by designated collection bodies and will be accessible through a single application-programming interface (API). By providing data in digital format (data extractable or machine-readable format), the ESAP is intended to be a cornerstone of the EU Digital Finance Strategy that would enable planned transition to data-driven finance.

Further, when it comes to existing EU policy on sustainable growth (anchored in the EU Green Deal and the Sustainable Finance Strategy) companies in the EU are currently faced with significant challenge of how to obtain relevant ESG information based on which they can ensure their compliance with relevant rules on corporate sustainability reporting or financial sustainability disclosure requirements. To that end, the ESAP shall also serve as a centralised access point for all ESG data of EU companies and information on ESG related financial products with a great potential to boost the green transition.

Review of the ELTIF Regulation

Back in 2015, the first Regulation on European-long-term investment funds (ELTIFs) was published with the aim to enable channelling of long-term financing to listed and non-listed small and medium enterprises as well as long-term infrastructure projects in the EU.  Despite the ambitious plan behind it, the Regulation did not seem to have achieved much so far: the number of ELTIFs in the EU remains relatively small with only 57 funds authorised by October 2021 in only four EU Member States.

The proposed amendments aim to make the ELTIF framework more attractive for the fund management industry by expanding the range of eligible investment assets and making necessary amendments to authorisation, operational and marketing requirements. Further, specific regime for ELTIFs that are to be marketed to professional investors, featured by new rules on portfolio diversification and composition, minimum threshold for eligible assets and concentration limits, will be introduced. The existing minimum investment threshold of EUR 10 000 shall also be removed to enable easier access to ELTIFs for retail investors.

Review of the AIFMD and UCITS framework

More than a year after the ESMA has sent its letter to the EU Commission with 19 key areas of improvement for AIFMD framework, the EU lawmaker has published a long-awaited proposal for the revision of the AIFMD (Directive 2011/61/EU).  Focused on establishing similar rules in certain areas for both AIFs and UCITS, the proposal makes some amendments to UCITS Directive (Directive 2009/65/ec) as well that largely follow amendments to AIFMD framework.

The proposal makes changes to AIFMD and UCITS framework in several areas that include, among other, the following:

  • Loan originating funds

Rules on loan originating AIFs will be harmonised to ensure a uniform level of investor protection and create a level playing field for loan originating AIFs in the EU. To that end, AIFMs that manage AIFs engaging in lending activities will need to comply with additional requirements on risk management and conflict of interest as well as risk-retention requirements when it comes to sale of granted loans in the secondary market. In the future, loan originating AIFs whose notional value of their originated loans exceeds 60 % of their net asset value, will need to be structured as closed-ended funds.

  • Delegation arrangements

The proposal clarifies that all activities listed in Annex I of the AIFMD (Annex II of the UCITS Directive) can be subject to delegation and the revised language is now referring to services and not only functions (like portfolio management or risk management). The new framework will continue allowing sourcing of expertise from third countries based on delegation arrangements, which certainly comes as a relief for the fund management industry after years of discussion on how the future of delegation arrangements will look like in the post-Brexit world. Further, NCAs will be required to notify ESMA about delegation arrangements where more risk or portfolio management function is delegated to third country entities than retained by an EU-AIFM.

  • Substance requirements

Fund managers applying for authorisation under AIFMD or UCITS framework will need to have appropriate technical and human resources and will need to describe in detail in their license applications how these resources will be used to carry out their functions and supervise the delegates. Further, in order to meet minimum substance requirements, all AIFMs and UCITS management companies will have to employ at least two persons (or engage two persons on a contractual basis) who are residents in the EU on a full-time basis.

Due to their significance and comprehensiveness, we will elaborate the changes introduced to AIFMD and UCITS framework in a separate publication in which we will also analyse their practical impact on the fund management industry in the EU.

Consolidated Tape

Through targeted amendments of the backbone of the EU market infrastructure regulation, MiFIR, the Commission intends to introduce a long-awaited consolidated tape that would provide access to data on prices and volume of traded securities in the EU. Currently, only a handful of large professional investors have access to near real-time market data across trading venues.

The introduction of a consolidated tape shall enable all investors, both large and small, the access to consolidated data on prices and volume for several asset-classes, such as shares, exchange-traded funds and bonds. The relevant market data will need to be submitted by market operators to consolidated tape provider (entity authorised under MiFID II) and Member States are required to provide for sanctions for entities not operating in compliance with this rule.

Ban of the Payment for order flow (PFOF) practice

The package also includes a Regulation that introduces a ban of the widely discussed and criticized market practice used by many new online brokers nowadays, payment for order flow (PFOF). Namely, for several years now, many new online brokers that promote the “zero-commission policy” (also referred to as “neo-brokers”) have been building their business models on the PFOF practice. When relying on the PFOF, an online broker routes his clients’ orders to a market maker for execution and receives a fee in exchange for this.

The PFOF was an area of concern of the EU regulators for quite some time now, and the Commission has expressed its concerns that brokers’ reliance on PFOF may lead to retail orders not being executed on terms most favourable to the client but instead on the terms most profitable to brokers. The published proposal is now prohibiting all investment firms operating in the EU, who act on behalf of clients, from receiving any fee, commission or non-monetary benefit from any third party in exchange for forwarding them client orders for execution.

We will analyse this important topic, which promises to have a significant impact on businesses of many neo-brokers in the EU, in a separate article in more detail.

Outlook

The published proposals represent important milestones on the way towards creating a Capital Markets Union for Europe and will definitely have an impact on existing business of many firms in the financial services sector. The Commission is planning to deliver on all of its commitments from the Action Plan until the end of its term, and is planning to present further legislative proposals in 2022 on open finance and listing rules as well as proposals creating frameworks on corporate insolvency and financial literacy.

Sustainable Finance Package

Finalisation of the regulatory framework on sustainable finance in sight

The EU has taken major steps over the past number of years to build a sustainable financial system. On this blog, we have repeatedly given updates on the EU Taxonomy Regulation, the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation and the Benchmark Regulation that form the foundation of the EU’s work to increase transparency and provide tools for investors to identify sustainable investment opportunities. We are now steering toward a final regulatory framework on sustainable finance.

Sustainable Finance Package in a nutshell

On 21 April 2021, the European Commission has adopted a comprehensive package of measures (the Sustainable Finance Package) as part of its wider policy initiative on sustainable finance, which aims to re-orient capital flows towards more sustainable investments and enable the EU to reduce its carbon-footprint by at least 55% by 2030 and reach carbon neutrality by 2050.

The Sustainable Finance Package is comprised of:

  • Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), which amends the existing reporting requirements under Directive 2014/95/E (Non-Financial Reporting Directive, NFRD) by expanding the scope of sustainability-related reporting requirements to more corporate entities;
  • Taxonomy Climate Delegated Act, which provides technical screening criteria under which an economic activity qualifies as environmentally sustainable, by contributing substantially to climate change mitigation or climate change adaptation while making no significant harm to any of the other environmental objectives;
  • Six Delegated Acts that amend requirements under UCITS, AIFMD, and MiFID II framework by incorporating new rules on consideration of sustainability risks, factors and preferences by investment managers and investment firms.

Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD)

With the aim to capture a wider group of companies and to bring sustainability reporting over time on a par to financial reporting, CSRD expands the scope of the existing NRFD, which currently applies only to companies with over 500 employees (even though national law in certain EU Member States stipulates lower thresholds).

The CSRD expands the scope of application of sustainability-related reporting requirements to all large undertakings (whether listed or not) that meet two of the following three criteria:

  • balance sheet total of EUR 20,000,000,
  • net turnover of EUR 40,000,000,
  • an average of 250 employees during the financial year.

In addition to large undertakings, the CSRD reporting requirements will apply to all companies listed on the EU regulated market as well, with the exception of listed micro companies.

To that end, the CSRD aims to capture nearly 50,000 companies in the EU in comparison to only 11,000 companies that are currently subject to reporting requirements under NFRD. This should provide financial institutions that are subject to Regulation (EU) 2020/2088 (Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation, SFDR) with more relevant sustainability-related data about prospective investee companies, based on which they will be able to fulfil disclosure requirements under the SFDR.

As a next step, the Commission will engage in discussions on the CSRD Proposal with the European Parliament and Council.

Taxonomy Climate Delegated Act

The Taxonomy Climate Delegated Act represents the first set of technical screening criteria that are intended to serve as a basis for the determination which economic activities can be deemed as environmentally sustainable under the Taxonomy Regulation. Developed based on the scientific advice of the Technical Expert Group (TEG), the Delegated Act provides technical screening criteria for determination whether an economic activity contributes significantly to either climate change mitigation or climate change adaption while making no significant harm to any other environmental objective under Article 9 of the Taxonomy Regulation.

Final Draft of the Delegated Act still needs to be officially adopted by the Commission, after which the European Parliament and the Council will have 4 months (which can be extended by additional 2 months) to officially adopt it.

Amending Delegated Acts

As part of the Sustainable Finance Package, the Commission has also published six long-awaited final versions of the draft amending delegated acts under MiFID II, UCITS and AIFMD framework with the aim of incorporating additional requirements on consideration of sustainability risks, factors and preferences by investment managers and investment firms.

The proposed changes introduced by delegated acts, which are expected to apply from October 2022, can be summarized as follows:

Product Governance: changes to MiFID II Delegated Directive (EU) 2017/593 put the obligation on manufacturers and distributors of financial instruments to take into consideration relevant sustainability factors and clients’ sustainability objectives in the process of product manufacturing and distribution.

Suitability assessment: changes to MiFID II Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/565 require investment firms to take into account clients’ sustainability preferences in the course of suitability assessment. Given that requirements on suitability assessment apply only to firms providing investment advisory and portfolio management services, ESMA is separately considering (ESMA Consultation on appropriateness and execution only under MiFID II) whether the consideration of sustainability risks and factors shall be taken into account in the case of provision of other investment services for which requirements on appropriateness assessment apply.

Integration of sustainability risks and factors: amendments to MiFID II Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/565, UCITS Delegated Directive 2010/43/EU and AIFMD Delegated Regulation (EU) 231/2013 impose new obligations on investment firms and asset managers, by requiring them to take into account sustainability risks and factors when complying with organisational requirements, including requirements on risk management and conflict of interest requirements.

Further, UCITS and AIF management companies that consider principal adverse impacts of their investment decisions on sustainability factors under SFDR (e.g. impact of an investment in a fossil fuel company on climate and environment), will be required to consider this when complying with due diligence requirements stipulated under UCITS and AIFMD framework.

The Sustainable Finance Package also includes similar changes to Delegated Acts under IDD, which affect insurance distributors.

Conclusion

The proposals published as part of the Sustainable Finance Package represent some of the last pieces in the puzzle of the EU regulatory framework on sustainable finance, which aims to support the EU on its way towards creation of a more sustainable economy. These latest efforts by the Commission provide some further clarity to corporate entities and financial institutions that have been facing with new regulatory challenges for quite some time now.  In the meantime, on 7 May 2021 the Commission has also published one additional Delegated Act under the Taxonomy Regulation, which outlines requirements on the content, methodology and presentation of key performance indicators (KPIs) that entities, which are subject to reporting requirements under Article 8 of the Taxonomy Regulation, need to comply with.

Nevertheless, there are some other important legislative proposals that still need to be published, like the final version of regulatory technical standards under the SFDR that is essential for compliance of financial institutions with disclosure requirements stipulated by this Regulation.  Those regulatory initiatives show that aiming at a sustainable financial market in Europe is more than a fancy trend but rather a new effort which needs to be taken seriously and is not to be underestimated. If you have any questions about the EU regulatory framework on sustainable finance and its impact on your business, please get in touch with us.