A political agreement reached on the Money Market Fund Regulation was signed-off by the Council of Ministers on December 7th in a meeting of EU Ambassadors (COREPER) and on December 8th by the European Parliament’s ECON Committee. These votes followed an original proposal by the European Commission in September 2013.
According to a press release, “EFAMA is appreciative of the work done and time spent by EU policymakers, which has resulted in a more workable outcome than the initial proposal, for European investors, MMF managers and the Capital Markets Union more generally.”
Peter De Proft, Director General of EFAMA commented: “EFAMA members manage both VNAV and CNAV Money Market Funds. From the outset, we have indicated that a proportionate and balanced Regulation which ensures the viability of both CNAV and VNAV MMFs can support alternative sources of financing to the real economy, a key focus of the European Commission’s flagship initiative on a Capital Markets Union.”
He continued: “In terms of CNAV MMFs, we welcome the creation of the LVNAV product which has the possibility of offering investors a real alternative to European CNAV Prime MMFs. Equally important is the retention of a workable government CNAV regime in different currencies. For the VNAV industry, a number of serious operational challenges have been minimised. However, the MMFR is by no means a panacea for either the industry or investors in MMFs”.
One noteworthy concern for both sides of the industry are the liquidity calculations of MMFs. EFAMA believes that the lack of a principles-based approach on liquidity will make it difficult to determine whether the arbitrary thresholds set in the final political agreement will be workable in different market scenarios.
EFAMA also regrets the agreement’s rejection of MMFs being able to operate as funds of funds, an important mechanism used by many VNAV managers for diversification purposes, and points out to some outstanding concerns on how the exemption from the 10% diversification limit of assets in deposits would work.
Finally, there are some practical difficulties with the ‘Know Your Customer’ requirements and the periodic reviews of the internal credit quality assessments will, in EFAMA’s view, not be workable for smaller players on the market.
Peter De Proft concluded: “There is no doubt that today’s MMFR result is a better outcome than the initial European Commission proposal. However, one cannot ignore the number of question marks on the potential consequences of different parts of the agreement. It remains to be seen whether smaller players will be able to continue operating, given the more elaborate compliance and disclosure requirements, combined with low business margins”.