Regulatory burdens, tech changes higlighted by Nordic fund associations

Mifid II, regtech and changes to the premium pension system are among the topics being highlighted by the Norwegian Fund and Asset Management Association (VFF) and the Swedish Investment Fund Association (Fondbolagens förening) respectively on behalf of their members, as the autumn of 2018 sees new challenges hit the industry.

At its Compliance 2018 event, the VFF saw presentations on Mifid II, governance of asset management businesses, cyber crime, ethics and finance, regtech and practical ESG responses to climate change up for discussion.

Isak Danielsson, specialist in securities law at Nordea, outlined the road ahead in the wake of Mifid II, and its impact on the industry in areas such as commission payments. Ongoing, of course, there are a number of key elements to Mifid II that managers need to deal with, such as the use of the European Mifid Template (EMT), which he also noted. (See presentation here: Foredrag-1-Isak-Danielsson)

In the area of regtech, Richard Rosenholtz of Visab Consulting, part of the B3 Consulting Group, noted that spending on compliance by banks globally passed the $100bn annual level in 2016, and has continued to grow strongly since. (Foredrag-6-Richard-Rosenholtz)

And the Norwegian funds industry was also given a forewarning about the need to take cyber crime serious, because of both the rise in the amount of data involved in the lives of humans generally, but also in light of increasing reliance on machine learning and artificial intelligence. (Foredrag-4-Carsten-Maartann-Moe)

A full list of the presentations is available here: https://www.vff.no/news/2018/complianceseminar-2018.

For its part, the Swedish Investment Fund Association has flagged up a meeting of its legal/compliance and pensions working groups for 21 September to go over questions around the new rules announced in the past week affecting funds on the premium pension (PPM) distribution platform. The responsible statutory authority, the Swedish Pensions Agency, has announced stricter rules for those funds that wish to remain on the platform.