Regulation is not for the good of industry but for the good of consumers, according to Sharon Bowles, former chairman of the European Parliament Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee.
Ms Boyle was giving a review of the EU financial regulatory framework at a House of Lords sub committee for economic and financial affairs earlier this week.
Committee member Lord (Howard) Flight of Worcester told Ms Boyle the fund management industry had felt the newly implemented AIFMD, which came in on Tuesday 22 July had added to what was already considered to be excessive regulation.
He said: “AIFMD is perceived as way over the top in terms of information requirements and reporting.”
Ms Boyle said regulation was aimed at consumers and to help protect taxpayers from another financial meltdown. She said: “The UK [government and regulators] was happy with AIFMD. We do not make legislation at the request of industry.”
She also listed what she felt were the four biggest regulatory achievements of the last few years, citing “derivatives legislation, the completion of CRD4, MiFID and the banking union project”.
Grant Lee, asset management director at PricewaterhouseCoopers, said: “In the age of big data, questions remain on the industry’s lips around what will be done with all this colossal amount of new data under AIFMD and whether the regulators will be able to digest this amount of information in a timely manner.”
Adviser view
Darius McDermott, managing director of Chelsea Financial Services in London said: “Lord Flight is, of course, very much on the side of financial services. While AIFMD is not my area of expertise I would agree that some parts of financial services are overegulated.”
