More information on more funds
As at 30 June 2010, Finesti collected and disseminated information on 34,335 share classes of investment funds. This was an increase of 5.2% since the beginning of the year.
The information it provides includes documents related to investment funds, such as prospectuses and financial reports. By the end of the first half of 2010, Finesti made available 73,213 fund documents, an increase of 77.2% over 6 months. This growth was mainly due to the publication of historical prospectuses and simplified prospectuses that it had previously collected.
Of these figures, Dominique Valschaerts, CEO of Finesti, said “We take an active role in enhancing access to European fund information and are very pleased with this growth in a difficult environment. We foresee this trend continuing and expect to further increase the range and types of information that we provide to the industry and to the public.”
EFAMA’s portal for Fund Processing Passports
On 28 June 2010, the European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA) launched its European portal for Fund Processing Passports (FPPs). The aim of this portal is to provide a central access point to all existing FPPs, documents for industry professionals that contain key information to facilitate the distribution and trading of investment funds.
The portal gathers FPPs from the main European providers of fund data and Finesti is one of these providers.
Industrialisation phase for the European Fund Classification
In June, Finesti entered an industrialisation phase for the collection of data related to the European Fund Classification (EFC).
The EFC is also an initiative EFAMA and it aims to provide a true pan-European classification of investment funds, supported and recognised by fund groups as well as data vendors and national associations. It will benefit all parties, including investors, through transparent comparisons of cross-border funds, a common language for fund classifications and greater standardisation.
Finesti and the Danish company FundConnect are the exclusive classification administrators for the EFC on a European scale. Currently, collection of this data is carried out for around 6,700 share classes and the industrialisation phase is expected to increase this number significantly.
New services launched
During the first six months of 2010, Finesti introduced new services for both professionals and investors. These included the launch of a fund factsheet service on its website (www.finesti.com) and the introduction of an RSS feed for notices and announcements from investment funds.
As regards the collection side of its business, the company opened a Wiki (a collaborative website) and released various online tutorials related to its collection platform, the Finesti Station, and its secure transmission channel, e-file.lu.
E-file.lu is run jointly with the Luxembourg Stock Exchange, Finesti’s parent company, and is mainly used for regulatory reporting to the Luxembourg authorities for customers of both Finesti and the Exchange.
New reporting types were added during the first half and at the end of June 2010, e-file.lu was being used by some 250 companies and covered 62 reporting types.
In addition, in February 2010, Finesti and Clearstream Banking Luxembourg concluded a technology partnership agreement to simplify and optimize the allocation of ISIN codes for all investment funds under Luxembourg law.
Under the terms of the agreement, e-file.lu will become one of the channels for the electronic submission of requests for the allocation of ISIN codes within Clearstream, in its capacity as a national numbering agency.
Preparations for UCITS IV
Projects for the second half of 2010 and for 2011 will include preparations for the UCITS IV directive.
In this area, the company is primarily focussed on developing products and services for the KID, or Key Investor Information Document, as well for the notification procedure foreseen in the directive.
A new board member
During the annual general meeting on 29 April 2010, Bernard Simon, head of information technology at the Luxembourg Stock Exchange was nominated to the board, replacing Axel Forster, who has taken retirement.
For any additional information please Christian Descoups
(tel. 47 79 36 272, fax 47 79 36 204, cde@finesti.com).
|
|