Raymond Frenken

Ciaran Fitzpatrick of State Street Institutional Services paints a vibrant picture of the evolving landscape for Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs). Across the investment world, the move from active to passive is not just a trend but a shift that is being felt across retail and institutional investments, largely due to persistent pressure on costs. Ireland and Luxembourg present different appeals to new issuers.

Indosuez, the wealth management arm of French bank Credit Agricole, has agreed to acquire a majority stake in Degroof Petercam from six Belgian families that wanted to sell their shares in Belgium’s largest private bank. The transaction will create a European wealth and asset management firm with some 200 billion euro in assets under management.

The European Commission this week disappointed sustainable investment organisations by ignoring their collective call for mandatory reporting requirements that would force companies to make public core indicators for their non-financial sustainability performance.

This week’s overview of people transfers and appointments in the fund and asset management industry includes new moves at Axa Investment Managers, Apex Group, Ocorian, Pinsent Masons, Columbia Threadneedle, Gen II Fund Services, Crestbridge, Baker McKenzie and Capex.com.

Investment managers are shifting fund investments towards Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) at the expense of traditional mutual funds. The shifts are clearly visible both in Ireland and Luxembourg, Europe’s two leading hubs for ETFs, according to insights from LSEG Lipper. BlackRock was the biggest-selling fund promoter in the first half, accounting for more than half of all European ETF inflows.

Financial supervision in the European Union has encountered a pressing challenge - a notable disparity in the approaches taken by national financial supervisors when it comes to sanctioning investment funds. As the watchdog of the EU’s financial markets, the European Securities and Markets Authority (Esma) has identified this growing divide and is now pushing for measures to foster greater convergence among member states.

The European Central Bank is set to make headlines again on Thursday as it is widely expected to raise its benchmark interest rates by another 25 basis points. The financial world is keenly watching to gauge the ECB’s plans for September and beyond.

As pressure mounts on investors to allocate larger portions of their portfolios to alternatives, Stuart Dunbar, a partner and director at Edinburgh-based investment manager Baillie Gifford, stresses the need for careful consideration. He highlights the limited supply of high-quality opportunities as a critical factor. “We can’t just rush into the alternatives.”

Negotiators from the European Council and European Parliament have reached a provisional agreement on new rules aimed at enhancing European capital markets and bolstering investor protection within the EU. The deal, reached during the early hours on Thursday, includes consensus on leverage limits and passporting rules for Loan Originating Funds (LOFs), marking a significant milestone in the regulatory landscape.

Luxembourg’s Fuchs & Associés Finance SA is no longer allowed to provide services in Belgium after its Luxembourg licence as a financial services professional was revoked by CSSF, Belgium’s financial markets supervisor FSMA said.