Study: GPs anxious about AIFMD reporting

More than two-thirds (67 percent) of fund managers are feeling concerned about their reporting requirements under the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD), a survey from software provider Confluence said.

“At the heart of their concern is AIFMD's requirement for reports to be validated, formatted and posted [quickly],” said in a statement Melvin Jayawardana, European market manager at Confluence.

The survey, which polled 60 fund managers and third party administrators, revealed the concerns despite finding that nearly all respondents (95 percent) said they feel informed about the new reporting rules.

The directive, which goes into force in July, requires GPs to report on either a quarterly, half-yearly or annual basis depending on the amount of assets under management and investment strategy. Each member state is responsible for implementing its own reporting deadlines.

“This is a major hurdle for an industry that has not implemented methods for handling such reporting granularity or frequency in a very narrow window before now,” said Jayawardana.

Most third party administrators are offering private fund clients an AIFMD reporting service; a minority of which will accomplish this through software, the survey revealed. However GPs that outsource their AIFMD reporting still bear a certain level of risk. More than half (59 percent) of fund administrators said they will not accept liability for the quality of GPs’ regulatory submissions.

In addition to reporting, fund managers in the survey said they are “very concerned” with risk management (52 percent), the cost of a depositary (42 percent), how to market funds (38 percent), and remuneration requirements (33 percent) under the directive.

For a more in-depth look at the AIFMD’s regulatory reporting challenge, be sure to read PE Manager’s May issue.