Retail investors in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand to have wider access to fund managers across the three countries

26 February 2018 | Kuala Lumpur

The Securities Commission Malaysia, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and the Securities and Exchange Commission of Thailand have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to enhance the ASEAN Collective Investment Schemes (CIS) Framework. The Framework enables fund managers operating in one jurisdiction to offer funds constituted and approved in that jurisdiction to retail investors in the other two jurisdictions under a streamlined authorisation process.

The revised Framework, which incorporates feedback from extensive industry consultations, seeks to promote more cross-border offerings of ASEAN funds and allow fund managers to offer a broader range of fund products to investors in the region. The key enhancements to the Framework will:

enable a wider range of fund managers to participate in the framework by lowering qualifying criteria to US$350 million assets under management from the US$500 million;
shorten the time-to-market for the launch of funds, as the signatories have committed to reviewing within 21 calendar days a complete application from fund managers for the authorisation of a fund; and
give participating fund managers more flexibility to delegate the investment management of a fund by increasing from 20% to 100% the proportion of the fund’s assets that can be sub-managed by a manager that is not regulated by a signatory.

The revised Framework took effect on 23 February 2018.

The new set of “Standards of Qualifying CIS” which fund managers under the ASEAN CIS Framework have to adhere to can be found at http://www.theacmf.org/ACMF/upload/standards_of_qualifying_cis.pdf

SECURITIES COMMISSION MALAYSIA