Priorités d’action et de supervision 2023 de l’Autorité des marchés financiers

On 9 January 2023, the Autorité de Marchers Financiers (AMF) published its action and supervisory priorities for 2023:
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The Action Priorities of the AMF for 2023 (at the time of writing only available in French) follow the five-year #Supervision2022 strategic plan. In a context of heightened uncertainty, faced with new challenges and after a period of unprecedented health crisis that had marked the previous years, the AMF’s actions will focus primarily on four areas in 2023:
– Promote transparent finance that meets the new expectations of retail investors, providing useful, easy-to-read information enabling investors to make informed investment decisions. The AMF will contribute to the national and European legislation currently under review and to the work undertaken by the Ministry of the Economy, Finance and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty on influence marketing.
– The AMF also wants to promote supervisory convergence by actively participating at ESMA’s work and intends to take a proactive stance on new European legislation, with a focus on investor protection. The AMF is committed to addressing the issues of financial market resilience and efficiency and will participate in the work being done under the auspices of the Financial Stability Board (FSB) and the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) on liquidity management by investment funds. It At the same time, it will continue to support financial players in implementing the new legislation, including the European Regulation on Markets in Crypto-assets (MiCA).
– Furthermore, the AMF intends to develop the regulatory framework for sustainable finance and combat greenwashing by supporting listed companies and asset managers in implementing key sustainable finance legislation. The AMF will in 2023 review the first reports by listed companies on their economic activities that are considered environmentally sustainable. The AMF will also assist the financial market to prepare for implementation of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). It will advocate in favour of a clarification of texts to ensure their proper application and to better combat the risk of greenwashing, in particular concerning the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR).
– Finally, the AMF wants to ensure robust and efficient supervision by continuing to secure its enforcement policy and adapt its tools to keep pace with changes in behaviour and technology, stepping up its use of data, while continuing to experiment with the possibilities offered by artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.
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The Supervision Priorities of the AMF for 2023 (at the time of writing only available in French), published yearly since 2018, present in the current 2023 version the primary themes for the year 2023 for professionals subject to AMF supervision working in the fields of asset management, intermediation and market infrastructures, as well as in the marketing and investment advice. The document lists in particular the topics that will be the subject of short thematic inspections (SPOT) and the priority monitoring topics. Since 2018, the AMF has published its supervisory priorities each year. For 2023, it has set out the following themes for its monitoring and oversight priorities:
INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT COMPANIES:
– cybersecurity arrangements, especially external IT service providers;
– governance & human resources of investment management companies and risk control systems;
– application of the SFDR;
the quality of data reporting, tested on the reports required under the money market fund regulation (MMFR), on alternative investment fund managers (AIFMs), and concerning the ROSA extranet; 
– environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting of benchmark administrators.
MARKET INTERMEDIARIES AND INFRASTRUCTURES:
– the quality of post-trade data transparency on bonds under the Markets In Financial Instruments Directive (MIFIR), and transaction data from reporting on derivatives under the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR) and securities financing transactions as regards the Securities Financing Transactions Regulation (SFTR);
– provision of market data by trading venues;
– cross-border activities.
MARKETING AND ADVISORY PLAYERS:
– marketing in distributor banking networks and compliance with the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID);
– marketing material;
– investor claims handling;
– financial investment adviser supervision, especially concerning the marketing of atypical, risky or banned products,
– AMF-ACPR Joint Unit will be starting work on the adoption of the provisions of MiFID II and the Insurance Distribution Directive (IDD).