Eliane Meziani, senior advisor – public affairs, CACEIS, says that sustainable finance is the “greatest challenge” for Europe’s asset managers.
As part of its coverage of Sibos 2022 in Amsterdam, Funds Europe has reached out to financial experts on key topics at the conference. Read more analysis here.
Can you highlight a piece of regulation at the European level that is most impactful for asset managers in terms of their technology governance or development?
“It is a difficult task to single out one piece of regulation from among the plethora of local and European regulatory initiatives that are currently impacting our asset manager clients (or are expected to impact them in the near future). However, we believe that ‘Sustainable Finance’, which is a priority concern for the European Union’s legislators, is without a shadow of a doubt the topic that will prove the greatest challenge and be the most impactful for asset managers in terms of their technology governance and development.
“Whether our asset manager clients manage traditional or alternative assets, complying with the EU’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) is a major undertaking. If we consider its key objectives, we see it is designed to steer capital flows into sustainable investments and to combat ‘greenwashing’. Managers are required to integrate sustainability criteria into their investment risk management. It promotes transparent and long-term investment and categorises funds according to their commitment to ESG criteria.
“And perhaps the most important of all is the requirement to produce non-financial analysis reports according to each fund’s individual classification.
“Compliance with SFDR demands that managers establish new risk management procedures, requires the full commitment of the management, staff awareness programmes, adapting systems, digitalising processes – and clearly, underpinning all this, a major investment.
“This is a serious challenge for asset managers in terms of technology governance, ensuring that all the necessary systems and digital processes are implemented in a timely manner in order to avoid any pitfalls of non-compliance that could hamper future business development opportunities. It involves significant change to the human, technical, organisational, financial and sales sides of their business”.
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