Advisers are yet to be convinced of the effectiveness of the key investor information document (Kiid), but it is only likely to become more prevalent.
Under yet more proposed European financial product rules, the Packaged Retail Investment Products (Prips) rules, the Kiid may be rolled out in some form across a much wider range of products than just Ucits-compliant funds.
Prips brings the widest variety of products yet under one set of regulations and, if it does introduce its own Kiid, the documents will have to be published for all open-ended funds, investment trusts, structured products, some insurance products and derivatives contracts.
Some lobbying is still taking place, with Fidelity’s head of public policy Philip Warland recently calling for Kiid rules to be changed to allow them to be presented to investors after a fund sale, which may go some way to reducing the number of hurdles an investor has to go through to buy a new product.
Investors and advisers alike should watch the Prips developments closely while taking the Kiids seriously – but not in isolation.
Nick Reeve is senior news reporter at Investment Adviser
