Commission Delegated Directive (EU) 2017/593Show full title

Article 1 Scope and definitions

1. This Directive shall apply to investment firms, to management companies in accordance with Article 6(4) of Directive 2009/65/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council(1) and to alternative investment fund managers in accordance with Article 6(6) of Directive 2011/61/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council(2).

2. For the purposes of Chapters II, III and IV of this Directive, references to investment firms and financial instruments shall include credit institutions and structured deposits in relation to all the requirements referred to in Article 1(3) and (4) of Directive 2014/65/EU.

3. ‘securities financing transaction’ means transactions as defined in Article 3 point (11) of Regulation (EU) 2015/2365 of the European Parliament and of the Council(3) on transparency of securities financing transactions and of reuse.

4. ‘qualifying money market fund’ means a collective investment undertaking authorised under Directive 2009/65/EC, or which is subject to supervision and, if applicable, authorised by an authority under the national law of the authorising Member State, and which satisfies all of the following conditions:

(a) its primary investment objective must be to maintain the net asset value of the undertaking either constant at par (net of earnings), or at the value of the investors' initial capital plus earnings;

(b) it must, with a view to achieving that primary investment objective, invest exclusively in high quality money market instruments with a maturity or residual maturity of no more than 397 days, or regular yield adjustments consistent with such a maturity, and with a weighted average maturity of 60 days. It may also achieve this objective by investing on an ancillary basis in deposits with credit institutions;

(c) it must provide liquidity through same day or next day settlement.

For the purposes of point (b), a money market instrument shall be considered to be of high quality if the management/investment company performs its own documented assessment of the credit quality of money market instruments that allows it to consider a money market instrument as high quality. Where one or more credit rating agencies registered and supervised by ESMA have provided a rating of the instrument, the management/investment company's internal assessment should have regard to, inter alia, those credit ratings.

(1)

Directive 2009/65/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 July 2009 on the coordination of laws, regulations and administrative provisions relating to undertakings for collective investment in transferable securities (UCITS) (OJ L 302, 17.11.2009, p. 32).

(2)

Directive 2011/61/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2011 on Alternative Investment Fund Managers and amending Directives 2003/41/EC and 2009/65/EC and Regulations (EC) No 1060/2009 and (EU) No 1095/2010 (OJ L 174, 1.7.2011, p. 1).

(3)

Regulation (EU) 2015/2365 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2015 on transparency of securities financing transactions and of reuse and amending Regulation (EU) No 648/2012 (OJ L 337, 23.12.2015, p. 1).