Regulation (EU) No 1071/2013 of the European Central BankShow full title

PART 1 U.K. Identification of certain MFIs

SECTION 1 U.K. Identification of certain MFIs based on principles of substitutability of deposits

1.1 Financial institutions other than credit institutions which issue financial instruments that are considered close substitutes for deposits are classified as MFIs provided that they meet the MFI definition in other respects. The classification is based on the criteria of substitutability of deposits, i.e. whether liabilities are classified as deposits, which is determined by their liquidity, combining characteristics of transferability, convertibility, certainty and marketability, and having regard, where appropriate, to their term of issue. U.K.

These criteria for the substitutability of deposits are also applied to determine whether liabilities should be classified as deposits, unless there is a separate category for such liabilities.

1.2 For the purposes both of determining substitutability of deposits and classifying liabilities as deposits: U.K.

(a)

transferability refers to the possibility of mobilising funds placed in a financial instrument by using payment facilities, such as cheques, transfer orders, direct debits or similar means;

(b)

convertibility refers to the possibility and the cost of converting financial instruments into currency or transferable deposits; the loss of fiscal advantages in the case of such conversion may be considered a penalty that reduces the degree of liquidity;

(c)

certainty means knowing precisely in advance the capital value of a financial instrument in terms of national currency;

(d)

securities quoted and traded regularly on an organised market are considered to be marketable. For shares in open-end collective investment undertakings, there is no market in the usual sense. Nevertheless, investors know the daily quotation of the shares and can withdraw funds at this price.

SECTION 2 U.K. Specifications for the MMFs’ identification criteria

For the purpose of Article 2:

(a)

the money market instrument shall be considered to be of a high credit quality, if it has been awarded one of the two highest available short-term credit ratings by each recognised credit rating agency that has rated the instrument or, if the instrument is not rated, it is of an equivalent quality as determined by the management company’s internal rating process. Where a recognised credit rating agency divides its highest short-term rating into two categories, these two ratings shall be considered as a single category and therefore the highest rating available;

(b)

the money market fund may, as an exception to the requirement in point (a), hold sovereign issuance of at least investment grade quality, whereby ‘sovereign issuance’ means money market instruments issued or guaranteed by a central, regional or local authority or central bank of a Member State, the ECB, the Union or the European Investment Bank;

(c)

when calculating WAL for securities, including structured financial instruments, the maturity calculation is based on the residual maturity until the legal redemption of the instruments. However, when a financial instrument embeds a put option, the exercise date of the put option may be used instead of the legal residual maturity only if the following conditions are fulfilled at all times:

(i)

the put option may be freely exercised by the management company at its exercise date;

(ii)

the strike price of the put option remains close to the expected value of the instrument at the next exercise date;

(iii)

the investment strategy of the MMF implies that there is a high probability that the option will be exercised at the next exercise date;

(d)

when calculating both WAL and WAM, the impact of financial derivative instruments, deposits and efficient portfolio management techniques shall be taken into account;

(e)

‘weighted average maturity’ (WAM) shall mean a measure of the average length of time to maturity of all of the underlying securities in the fund weighted to reflect the relative holdings in each instrument, assuming that the maturity of a floating rate instrument is the time remaining until the next interest rate reset to the money market rate, rather than the time remaining before the principal value of the security must be repaid. In practice, WAM is used to measure the sensitivity of a MMF to changing money market interest rates;

(f)

‘weighted average life’ (WAL) shall mean the weighted average of the remaining maturity of each security held in a fund, meaning the time until the principal is repaid in full, disregarding interest and not discounting. Contrary to the calculation of the WAM, the calculation of the WAL for floating rate securities and structured financial instruments does not permit the use of interest rate reset dates and instead only uses a security’s stated final maturity. WAL is used to measure the credit risk, as the longer the reimbursement of principal is postponed, the higher the credit risk. WAL is also used to limit the liquidity risk;

(g)

‘money market instruments’ means instruments normally traded on the money market which are liquid and have a value which can be accurately determined at any time;

(h)

‘management company’ means a company, the regular business of which is the management of the portfolio of an MMF.