Countries of Registration

This white paper addresses the following openfunds fields

OFST6030XX Country Legal Registration
OFST6031XX Marketing Distribution

General approach

As the countries of legal registration and marketing distribution are essential not only for any marketing and sales activities, but also for suitability and dissemination of data, it is very important to understand the matrix of combinations and their impact on availability/visibility.

The values for both data points (OFST6030[XX] and OFST6031[XX]) are always required. Therefore, please ensure to populate information for each country by reflecting data in both datafields with the appropriate information.

Legal Registration (OFST6030[XX])

The ‘Legal Registration’ information per country reflects whether the ISIN is registered in this country from a legal perspective.

  • ‘yes’ – this fund/share class is registered by the local financial authority for retail investors without restriction to a certain audience (i.e. institutional investors).
  • ‘res’ – the approval of this fund/share class has been restricted by the local financial authority to a certain audience (i.e. institutional investors). ‘res’ also applies for funds passported in Europe to professional investors according to the AIFMD directive.
  • ‘no’ – this fund/share class is not registered nor approved by the local financial authority of this country.

Marketing Distribution (OFST6031[XX])

Marketing Distribution’ is an additional filter regarding the availability by country. By restricting access to certain share classes to a limited audience only (‘res’) or no audience at all (‘no’), you can provide detailed instructions that support your marketing intentions per country. Please ensure to avoid ‘impossible combinations’ (see graphic above).

  • ‘yes’ – this share class can be made available to all investors, including retail ones.
  • ‘res’ – access to this share class should be restricted to a certain audience only (i.e. professional investors).
  • ‘no’ – instruction to set visibility of this share class in the corresponding country to zero. If the fund/ share class is not registered in this country, this is the correct option to choose (exception of Switzerland see below).

Country specific approach

There are certain countries or fund types which have a specific rule set regarding the combinations of ‘Legal Registration’ and ‘Marketing Distribution’. Please find some details below, but keep in mind that this list does not provide any legal advice, as it is solely reflecting openfunds’ view.
If you require specific information regarding registration status of your fund range, please contact your legal department.

Switzerland

According to openfunds understanding, there are different legal approval types for funds registered with the Swiss local authority, FINMA. Differentiation is made by the funds’ domicile being non-Swiss (‘foreign’) or Swiss:

Please note that for foreign funds registered/distributed in Switzerland, the indication of following data is mandatory:

  • Has Country Representative – Switzerland (OFST6100CH)
  • Country Representative Name – Switzerland (OFST6102CH)
  • Has Country Paying Agent – Switzerland (OFST6105CH)
  • Country Paying Agent Name – Switzerland (OFST6107CH)

Please ensure to list the representative’s name in accordance to the official spelling of FINMA.

Singapore

According to the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), there are different approval types in Singapore. Similar to Switzerland, there is a differentiation between Singapore constituted schemes and schemes constituted outside Singapore.

Keep in mind that approval can be on share class level, which is why one fund can have both registration types. Further details are available in the ‘CIS Practitioner Guide revised 08 Oct 2018’.

Passporting in Europe according to AIFMD

In Europe, there are non-UCIT funds, which are regulated by the Directive 2011/61/EU on Alternative Investment Fund Managers (AIFMD). These AIF (Alternative Investment Funds) can be distributed in the European Union (EU) by designated AIFM (Alternative Investment Fund Managers).

If the AIF is not marketed in a certain EU country to retail investors, but passported for marketing to professional investors, please indicate this as following:

  • ‘Legal Registration’ = ‘res’
  • ‘Marketing Distribution’ = ‘res’ or ‘no’

Other countries

There are further countries such as Italy, Liechtenstein, Denmark etc., which have different approval types. Please always follow the same pattern:

  • Legal approval/registration for all investors: ‘Legal Registration’ = ‘yes’
  • Legal approval for restricted audience/certain investors only: ‘Legal Registration’ = ‘res’
  • Set ‘Marketing Distribution’ equally to ‘Legal Registration’. If you want to reduce visibility, you can narrow the filtering by choosing the appropriate ‘res’ or ‘no’ value.

For all countries, keep in mind to avoid invalid combinations (such as ‘Legal registration’ = ‘no’/ ’Marketing Distribution’ = ‘yes’).
If a registration approval is pending, please populate ‘no’ until you receive approval confirmation from the local authority.

Document Information

Title:Countries of Registration
Language:English
Confidentiality:Public
Authors:Michael Partin

Revision History

Version     Date Status Notice
1.32024-08-16FinalAddition of L-QIF in the Swiss section
1.22023-12-15FinalAmending Swiss section to reflect change in law regarding non-registered funds
1.12022-03-07FinalAdded versioning details
1.02018-11-14Final 

Implementation

If you have any questions about the new data type or difficulties with implementation please contact us at businessoffice@openfunds.org.

Joining openfunds

If your firm has a need to reliably send or receive fund data, you are more than welcome to use the openfunds fields and definitions free-of-charge. Interested parties can contact the openfunds association by sending an email to: businessoffice@openfunds.org

openfunds.org
c/o Balmer-Etienne AG
Bederstrasse 66
CH-8002 Zurich
Tel.: +41 44 286 80 20
Email: businessoffice@openfunds.org

If you wish to read or download this white paper as PDF, please click here.