On 18th April 2012, over 200 European Risk Managers, Conducting Officers and Experts turned up to the Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce to hear about the latest developments and trends.

Over the past years the conference has become an industry platform for exchanging information between practitioners. PRiM announced the set-up of a certification program for ensuring appropriate training of risk managers in Luxembourg, which the association is currently rolling out with the IFBL.

A broad range of risk management topics, including risk governance, stress testing, liquidity risk, depositary risk and liability and risk management consideration under AIFMD and for Specialized Investment Funds (SIFs) were presented.

Jean-Christoph Arntz, CEO, Allianz Global Investors S.A. and ALFI Board member, presented the updated ALFI & PRiM Risk Management guidelines including best practice proposals for the organisation of the risk function of a UCITS Management Company or UCITS Investment Company. He also revealed that the ALFI Risk Management Committee is currently working on additional best practice proposals for the industry.

A growing number of countries in Asia and in Latin America have accepted UCITS as providing a stable, high quality, well-regulated investment product with a significant level of investor protection and robust risk framework.

Eleanor Wan, Chief Executive Officer of BEA UNION Investment Management Ltd. from Hong Kong stated that Luxembourg is the domicile of Choice for Asian investors. In fact, around 60% of the authorized unit trust and mutual funds in Hong Kong are of Luxembourg origin. This underpins that Luxembourg has successfully positioned itself as the global leader for cross-border distribution of investment funds, with the result that today 72% of the UCITS funds distributed internationally are based in Luxembourg.

To support sales growth in Asia, ALFI launched in 2010 its first overseas Representative Office in the region, based in Hong Kong. The objective is to promote the Luxembourg Fund Industry with existing and future Asian based clients and maintain a dialogue with stakeholders by addressing their queries and informing them about the latest trends and developments in Luxembourg and in Europe.

The day was concluded by a panel chaired by Marco Zwick, the President of PRiM, which also gave the participants the chance to get some further information (inter alia from Alain Hoscheid, Conseiller de Direction 1ère classe, Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier) about risk management under the AIFMD and the recently updated SIF law. During the panel, Giles Swan, Director of Global Funds Policy from ICI Global stated that EU Commission draft regulation implementing the Directive 2011/61/EU on Alternative Investment Fund Managers (AIFMD) diverges from the technical advice provided to the Commission by ESMA.

The updated Risk Management guidelines including the best practice proposals for the organisation of the risk function of a UCITS Management Company or UCITS Investment Company can be downloaded on the following link:
http://www.alfi.lu/sites/alfi.lu/files/ALFI-Risk-Management-170412.pdf