The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has revealed that professional investors own more than 90% of the EU’s undertakings for collective investment in transferable securities (UCITS) in its first EU Money Market Funds (MMFs) Report, published on Wednesday 8 February. With this report, ESMA provides a comprehensive overview of the EU MMF market for the first time based on supervisory information collected by National Competent Authorities (NCAs) and ESMA.
According to ESMA, the MMF sector had €1.44 trillion in assets in 2021, and 89% of these funds were domiciled in France, Luxembourg and Ireland.
The portfolio structure of MMFs remains relatively stable over time, and is mainly exposed to the financial sector. Between March 2020 and June 2022, average exposures to credit institutions amounted to 60% of total assets. However, most of the exposure for undertakings for collective investment to government debt is to non-EU sovereigns.
“Recent periods of stress experienced by MMFs in the short-term funding markets (such as in March 2020) have shown the importance of monitoring trends and developments in the EU MMF sector”, ESMA Chair Verena Ross stressed in a press release.
To read the report: https://aeur.eu/f/59i (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)