The Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) governs the French financial market, its participants, and the investment goods delivered via it. It also assures that investors are adequately informed and is a driving force behind the regulation change at the European and global levels. In addition, it has regulatory powers and a high financial and managerial independence level as an independent public authority.
Between 2018 and 2022, the AMF aspires to play an active part in forming a solid and competitive future EU27 while also embracing the digital revolution and assisting in meeting the new difficulties of economic finance.
AMF Supervisory Goals for 2021
The French Financial Markets Authority released its action and supervisory goals for 2021, which fall into broader strategic orientations established in a five-year plan, now the Supervision 2022 strategic plan. These are exceptionally significant, considering that France assumed the leadership of the European Union Council for six months on January 1. During this period, the AMF will give technical assistance to the Ministry of Economy, Finance, and Economic Recovery, as it chairs the Council for Economic and Financial Affairs.
Despite an economic environment impacted by the Covid-19 crisis, the AMF deployed educational campaigns and supported European initiatives on Capital Markets Union – a monetary policy plan designed by the European Commission to build a single capital market, benefiting consumers, investors, and businesses regardless of location and digital finance in 2020. As part of its digital transition, it also began modernizing its information systems.
Supervisory Goals for 2022
On January 5, 2022, the Autorité Des Marchés Financiers (AMF) released its goals for 2022. Concerning its action priorities, the following are the four focus areas:
European level, for which the AMF is mobilizing by providing technical support to the French presidency of the Council of the EU in the first half of 2022 and by contributing to European work, whether to strengthen capital transparency, support the critical role of asset management in financing the economy, prepare for the implementation of the future European framework for crypto-assets, or converging supervision;
- Individual investment: The AMF seeks to strive for a European framework that protects savers while allowing access to capital markets. As a result, it has developed regulatory suggestions and will participate in discussing a European strategy for individual investors.
- Sustainable finance: The AMF will assist firms in implementing the European taxonomy and will help to build sustainability reporting requirements. In addition, the AMF will prioritize the battle against money laundering in 2022, with the implementation of the European transparency framework, recommendations for suitable labeling and standards, and continuing work on the role of finance in the transition to carbon neutrality.
- The continuance of the regulator's modernization of action: the AMF will continue to generalize a more intense use of data that incorporates big data and artificial intelligence technologies to all of its players. It will expand the ROSA extranet, which has been available to portfolio management firms since 2021, to include products such as the 12,000 French investment funds.
The following themes have been highlighted as AMF supervisory priorities:
- Asset management: valuation of illiquid assets such as real estate or corporate bonds, adherence to limitations and contractual responsibilities in terms of sustainable financing, governance and data quality, monitoring, and supervision of portfolio management firms by depositaries.
- The operations of market infrastructures and intermediaries: the quality of transaction data on bonds (post-trade transparency) and reporting on derivatives transactions, the provision of market data by trading platforms, and cross-border movements;
- Marketing and investment advice: monitoring of financial investment advisors, control of marketing carried out inside banking networks, establishment and transparency of distributor charges and fees, and marketing to vulnerable older people within the scope of the ACPR's typical pole.
