The four panel discussions, covering PRIIPS requirements, data standards and the challenges faced by financial services were unanimous in their concern that the current PRIIPs regulation is not yet fit for purpose. This issue was echoed by the European Parliament’s vote the following day to reject the current PRIIPS regulatory technical standards.
On the issue of whether PRIIPs would go ahead on 1st January 2017, the panellists were divided. Whilst the representatives from the ABI and Club Ampere felt that the deadline would be delayed, The panel members from The Investment Association and EY agreed that 1st January is likely to mark the ‘go live’ date for Level 1 requirements.
However, what was unanimously agreed upon by the panel was the importance of pushing ahead to prepare for this regulation. A notion backed by 80% of the audience, made up of asset managers, insurers and data firms.
This lack of consistency and understanding is repeated across Europe. John McCann, Sales Director at RR Donnelley highlighted that what he “has seen in Europe is very different to what we are seeing in the UK”, and John Dowdall, MD of Silverfinch, added that “the British, French and Germans all have different definitions of the amount of data required, despite the fact that they are all using the same template”.
Despite this lack of clarity, the positive effect of PRIIPs, which was felt across all sectors, was that insurers and asset managers are now coming together in order to ensure they are able to comply with the regulation, in whatever form this may take. “Companies need to interact with each other to ensure data is accurate and well distributed”, voiced Jeff Willems, SVP Client Development, Silverfinch, a point with which Andrew Johnston, Director and Senior Executive at FundAssist, agreed, adding, “The sooner the industry starts sharing data and agreeing templates the better.”
Indeed, international organisations have already started preparing for the exchange of data between investment managers and PRIIPs firms, Pierre Maugery-Pons, VP at EFESO Consulting and Chair of Club Ampere stated that "there is only one template for exchanging information on PRIIPs KID. It is the "EPT" on which every working group across Europe are converging".
Commenting on the event, John Dowdall, managing director of Silverfinch said: “The industry is unanimous in the belief that PRIIPs will go ahead, at some point, and will have a massive impact across both the insurance and asset manager sectors. However, there remains uncertainty regarding the full details for the final implementation.
“The good news is that there is much we can do to make progress as an industry in spite of some uncertainty still existing. We have a data standard for the exchange of data and can now align our data environments and processes. Insurers and asset managers are really coming together to succeed in the post-PRIIPs world and we look forward to joining together as an industry to make this new regulation a success.”
The event follows Silverfinch’s recent expansion of its data model to include the KID data for PRIIPs, allowing asset managers to efficiently share their data with insurance-based investment product manufacturers across Europe and subsequently enable their insurer clients to trade under the new regulation.
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