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Markets and Securities Services |
Ireland
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We stand ready to do
our job. We are open
for engagement.
Gerry Cross, Director of Policy and Risk, Central Bank
the EU market (and, in particular, the authority
to allow sales teams to operate within the EU).
This may be done by establishing an Irish entity
with a relevant EU licence, whether as a UCITS
management company, AIFM or MiFID firm.
All this has the potential to affect the Strategic
Plan published in November 2015 — a time
when the prospect of a positive vote in the
UK’s referendum on its withdrawal from the
EU appeared an unlikely scenario. The Central
Bank identified a number of critical factors or
“strategic enablers” that must be managed to
achieve the aims of the Strategic Plan. These
included the areas of people and knowledge and
information and resources. In the wake of the
Brexit vote, the Central Bank has had to react
swiftly to external events and no doubt reconsider
elements of its Strategic Plan. One immediate
step taken was to split its Markets Supervision
Directorate into two units as it deals with a surge
of inquiries from London-based investment funds
and firms following the Brexit referendum — an
Asset-Management Directorate and a Securities
and Markets Directorate.
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To ensure sufficient
capacity, it has also been reported to be seeking to
This process is likely to fall away in the event of a
“hard Brexit” that is, the UK giving up full access
to the single market for goods and services and
full access to the customs union in return for
gaining full control over its own trade deals, its
own law-making, and its own immigration policy,
but it should be possible for UK institutions to
continue to act in respect of Irish funds on the
basis that the UK has a model of prudential
regulation comparable to EU requirements. In
this regard, it is worth noting that Prime Minister
May has indicated her intention to pass a “Great
Repeal Bill” prior to Brexit, thereby enshining
current EU law into UK domestic law. Accordingly,
UK investment managers of Irish domiciled
funds should be able to find themselves in an
analogous position to the many investment
managers from various jurisdictions including the
USA, Hong Kong, Singapore, Brazil, South Africa,
Dubai and others that have been approved by the
Central Bank to manage Irish-domiciled funds.
Brexit also presents a clear impetus for UK
management companies to consider the
establishment of a base in the EU in order to
continue to have the current level of access to