Voss says the raft of sweeping new EU regulations being introduced this year is creating an almighty headache for the asset management industry.
2018 has already seen the introduction of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (Mifid II), key information documents (the Kid regulation) and the Packaged Retail and Insurance-based Investment Products (Priips), and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) looms in May.
“We need regulation that makes sense across the board,” Voss says, adding, by way of example, that the definition of a ‘retail investor’ can change depending on the piece of regulation. “An asset manager has to comply with both definitions,” she complains, which can be very time-consuming.
Mifid II’s enormous remit includes a product governance component encouraging asset managers to provide distributors with target market information.
“We’re spending so much time implementing [different] regulations that it doesn’t give us much time to do other things.”
Britain’s former European commissioner Jonathan Hill was a strident advocate of “better regulation” and making sure that different pieces of EU legislation complement each other. But Lord Hill, who represented the UK’s financial services industry in Brussels, resigned from his position after the Brexit vote in June 2016.
“[Since then] the idea of better regulation and making sure [the different pieces of EU regulation] hang together well… has gotten a bit lost in the shuffle,” Voss, who is also a director at Franklin Templeton, says.
“We do not have the spirit or actions in the direction of better regulation. We’re just chasing after regulation after regulation to implement it.”
“Obviously the focus of our business is managing assets and solutions for investors and it just means that there is less money and time to do that because we’re dealing with regulation,” she says. “It’s very much a concern.”
