AIFMD Approaches

Much like the Form PF law that was instituted in the United States, the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD) was designed to allow regulators a peek into the books of hedge funds and others in order to monitor for systemic risk.

On Monday, we will get more in-depth into some of the IT-related requirements stemming from AIFMD, but after speaking with some vendors who are trying to help their clients prep for this directive, it sounded a lot like when I was speaking to companies in the US prior to their filing for Form PF.

Mainly, there are three things that are most challenging: Data aggregation, data warehousing and data reporting.

At face value, these are very mundane things. But after chatting with numerous hedge funds contacts-and not just technologists, but portfolio managers, CEOs, CFOs and chief investment officers-they were somewhat surprised at how difficult it was to pull all these data sources together. They had to lean heavily on their fund administrators and work closely with third parties. This is something that hedge funds are not used to.

Ultimately, these moves toward transparency are good. They should be embraced. I do wonder, though, how effective this directive can be when you're dealing with all these different countries and markets.

I'm sure as we move forward there will be new issues that will have to be addressed. I also tend to think that while Form PF is here to stay, I have my doubts as to the effectiveness and longevity of AIFMD...but that's just a hunch.

What do you think? Shoot me an email (anthony.malakian@incisivemedia.com) or give me a call (646-490-3973).