The AIFMD: Understanding the framework and ensuring compliance

Regulatory change is one of the biggest challenges for banks active in international financial markets. Since the financial crisis of 2008, regulators have tightened the regimes and the cost of ensuring compliance with new rules has increased the cost of doing business. Implementing new regulation is not a one-off exercise, as most frameworks demand that the addressees need to be compliant with defined requirements at any time. So, financial institutions are forced to (i) understand the parts of the regulations which are applicable to them, (ii) identify the legal entities which need to achieve compliance, (iii) initially implement all requirements into day-to-day operational processes and (iv) reassure compliance from time to time. Often regulations consist of more than a single document. Most EU directives for example are equipped with an Implementation Regulation and various Delegated Regulations developed by the EU Commission. In reality those documents contain a lot of duplication and not all provisions apply to the addressee (e.g. the AIFMD contains many rules for Competent Authorities and ESMA). The pure mass of regulatory text, the language used and the document structure prevents even industry insiders from understanding the content by just reading the documents. This book intends to filter out all AIFMD provisions applicable to AIFMs and to present them in a digestible form and structure. It might also serve Independent Control Functions within the financial industry like Compliance, Operational Risk Control, Business Risk Management Units and Internal and External Audit Units as a guide for examining post implementation reviews or topic-related analysis. The structure of this book will allow you to quickly identify your specific topic of interest. Each of the 10 chapters offers you an introduction to the topic, an overview of the applicable provisions and a summary of the most important rules. If you need to develop an even deeper understanding, all AIFMD provisions are structured in flowcharts, including the regulation and the specific paragraph triggering the requirement. In the appendix you can find all AIFMD rules applicable to AIFMs. Hyperlinks allow you to quickly jump forward and back.

In 1991, Heiko started a practical training with a large global bank in Hamburg, Germany. After successfully finishing the training and spending some time in the industry, he volunteered for military service in the German Navy, joining two missions in the Mediterranean Sea in 1995. In 2000 he received a law degree in banking and insurance law and signed up with UBS in Frankfurt, Germany. As chief of staff for products & services, he was responsible for implementing portfolio management and client reporting systems. In 2004 he became the head of the quality assurance department and he redesigned the asset management and investment guidelines monitoring processes of UBS Deutschland AG. In 2006, UBS AG, Zurich offered him the deputy head position of a large IT unit that developed and maintained most of UBS’s portfolio management and advisory tools and systems. In 2009, already equipped with some valuable business experience, Heiko joined the Risk Effectiveness Program, a large scale risk remediation programme for recalibrating UBS’s risk profile. From 2011 to the end of 2014 he worked in the Operational Risk Control and Compliance department of UBS Global Asset Management, being responsible for International Fund Services and the Swiss market. He specialised in Product Risk, Business Conduct Risk and Outsourcing and Offshoring-related risk; in addition, he developed models and methodology for integrating regulatory change and new financial market regulation in the Operational Risk and Compliance control framework. In 2013 he earned the Six Sigma Black Belt degree. In December 2014 Heiko left UBS and currently holds the position of Chief Operating Officer at ACOLIN Fund Services AG, Zurich, Switzerland.