News & blog

Nick Miller, Head of Asset Management Supervision at the UK‘s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), has recently criticised the quality of ESG data disclosed in an open letter (link) to the boards of UK-licensed fund providers.

From January 2022, the EDDy interface to WM data will be replaced by EDDy_neu; i.e. obsolete technologies and functionalities will be successively replaced by new ones.

Gerhard Jovy, founder and CEO of acarda, the platform for compliance and regulatory reporting in the investment management industry, on the management of sustainable investment opportunities.

As anticipated, the European Commission published a consultation paper on 15 July 2021 requesting to extend the exemption period for the UCITS KIID until 30 June 2022.

By the end of June 2021 the updated Capital Requirement Regulation (CRR II) came into force. The goal of the EU regulation is to introduce a more risk-sensitive framework for management credit risks. One of the key outcomes of CRR II will be a stricter client reporting and disclosure regime.

According to information from the German Investment and Asset Management Association (BVI) dated May 21, 2021, the EU Commission plans to delay the start of PRIIPs-KIDsby six months. A package of measures, which will include not only technical adjustments to Level 2 but also a selective amendment to the Level 1 Regulation, is to be forwarded by the EU Commission to the EU Parliament and Council before the end of June 2021.

On 28th May 2021, ESMA published an update on its FAQ on the application of the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD).
Three new questions related to Annex IV reporting were added to the document. In the Section III question number 84, 85 and 86, ESMA provided detailed explanations and examples on the reporting obligation of NET DV01, NET CS01 and NET Equity Delta of the AIF.

acarda, a leading European RegTech company and part of LPA Group, has announced a coorperation with InReg, a regulatory maintenance provider that specialises in monitoring changes occurring within the regulatory updates for the asset management and life insurance sectors.

acarda has successfully passed this year’s certification audit in accordance with ISO 27001 for the scope “Software development and operation of SaaS solutions for the reporting of private and investment funds”.

On 8th April the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published the annual statistical report on EU Alternative investment funds2. In the report, ESMA calls for improvement of the data quality in the Annex IV reporting. In addition, the reports calls for the follow-up of the improvement of the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD) by the European Commission, which was initiated in August 2020.

The updated Capital Requirements Regulation, known as CRR II and laid out in Regulation (EU) 2019/876, will come into force end of June 2021. While the update in general encompasses numerous topics in relation to Pillar I of the regulation, only some of them will be immediately relevant for the fund industry and associated service providers.

The regulatory dynamics on the capital market will remain high over the coming years. In 2022, following approval by the European Commission and the European Parliament, the new Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) for Key Information Documents (KIDs) of Packaged Retail Investment and Insurance-based Products (PRIIPs) with a revised performance calculation and different methods for calculating transaction costs will come into force.

Over the past few days we have been asked if acarda is affected by the security breaches related to Microsoft Exchange Server security vulnerabilities.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published the final guidance on leverage risk in AIF under the Article 25 of the AIFMD (Directive 2011/61/EU) on 17 December 2020.

After the revised RTS (Regulatory Technical Standards) for PRIIPs have already been adopted by ESMA and EBA, they have now also been confirmed by EIOPA.

On 4 February 2021, the European Supervisory Authorities (ESA) published their final report on the Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) for SFDR. This results in a number of updates that urgently need to be taken into consideration in the compliance reporting.

To keep you up to date, we have summarised the most important upcoming changes and our recommendations for action.

SFDR: new MiFID II EMT version 3.1 required by 10/03/2021.

acarda upgrades its reporting platform with a SFDR module with scoring, classification and the publication functions according to SFDR Level 1 and 2.

Regulatory real estate fund reporting is associated with certain challenges. Until now there has been no complete binding data model able to be used as a basis for automating reporting processes.

Together with LPA, acarda has made a donation to CyberMentor, an online mentoring platform specifically for girls interested in STEM subjects. The leading providers of innovative SaaS solutions and financial consultancy services are now official sponsors of the online mentoring program that aims to inspire girls to study science, technology, engineering or mathematics.

As per the latest MIFiD II guidelines, the European MIFiD Template (EMT) version 3.0 was launched to be produced by manufacturers from December 10, 2019. FinDatEx has provided a period of one year for asset managers to transition from the old EMT to the new version. This means that, by 10th December 2020, we should be able to produce EMT version 3.0.

On 21 July, 2020, the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) informed the European Commission of the outcome of their review on the Key Information Document (KID) for packaged retail and insurance-based investment products (PRIIPs). The review of the PRIIPs Delegated Regulation pointed out the main issues that had been identified following the October 2019 Consultation Paper, in particular regarding information on risk and performance measures and transaction costs.

The implementation of the EU regulation on the disclosure of standardised sustainability indicators
for financial investments is progressing rapidly.

On August 18th, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published a letter that was sent to the European Commission (EC) on recommendations to incorporate in the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD).
The ESMA and EU national competent authorities have identified areas of improvement to AIFMD. The review provides the base for their recommendations to be enacted.

The RegTech company acarda, a specialist in integrated regulatory data management and reporting solutions, is a new member of the LPA Group.

The compliance platform arep is now available to all LPA customers worldwide for efficient coverage of regulatory requirements.

The focus is to provide transparent SaaS solutions and services for asset managers, deposit banks and service providers in Europe and Asia. A team of more than 400 employees provides support in this area.

Whether the European Securities and Markets Authority ESMA will implement its plans for the further development of the MiFid II/MiFIR financial markets directive this year as planned is anything but certain in view of the corona pandemic.

07. May 2020 – It is as yet unclear whether the European Market Supervisory Authority (ESMA) will realise its intended adjustments
to the financial market directive MiFid II/MiFIR for this year despite the Corona pandemic.
However, an adjustment to the PRIIPs regulation for packaged
retail and insurance-based investment products seems certain. In the long term,
no slowdown in regulatory dynamics for asset managers is to be expected.

RegTech specialist for regulatory reporting and data management solutions for asset managers, fund administrators and insurance companies cooperates with the LPA Group, one of the world’s leading developers and consultants for technology-based capital market solutions (CapTech), from April 2020.

Find below the latest actions from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the
European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) and Commission de Surveillance du
Secteur Financier (CSSF) to support listed companies
during the coronavirus crisis.

In the face of the COVID-19 crisis and market volatility, acarda´s highest priority is the health
and safety of its community – of its clients, and its employees
– without sacrificing the reliability and quality of its services.

Due to the current developments of the circulating Corona Virus (COVID-19) we would like to inform you that we have taken preventive and protective measures for the health of our employees and at the same time ensure that our business operations are maintained at all times.

The Tripartite Template (TPT) is a widely used data exchange format aiming to facilitate exchange of Solvency II relevant data point among Asset Management and Insurance companies.

Following our webinar on how to implement the new framework of Cost Transparency Initiative (CTI) templates, we held a highly practical half-day workshop in London.

acarda is exhibiting at the PLSA Investment Conference taking place at the EICC in Edinburgh in March 11-13.
in Edinburgh.

The AIFMD reports must be submitted via an XML file according to the specification of the European Securities and Markets Authority.

On November 29, the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) held a public hearing on their Consultation Paper issued in October 2019.