Central Bank of Ireland publishes Markets Update No 9 of 2023

On 1 November 2023, the Central Bank of Ireland (the Central Bank) published Issue No 9 2023 of its regular Markets Update, in which it sets out alerts of interest to Irish regulated firms and other market participants.

For our summaries of the previous issues, please see the right-hand column of this page.

The new Update contains the following three Central Bank publications

The Central Bank consults on a new ELTIF chapter in the AIF Rulebook

The Central Bank has published Consultation Paper 155. This puts forward proposals for a new Chapter 6 within the Central Bank's AIF Rulebook, aimed at supporting the establishment of European Long-Term Investment Funds (ELTIFs) in Ireland.

Chapter 6 is intended to be in two parts:

• Part I will include restrictions, supervisory requirements, prospectus requirements, general operational requirements and requirements regarding financial reports for ELTIFs
• Part II sets out requirements on marketing ELTIFs to retail investors

The consultation period closes on 13 December 2023.

We will be publishing a fuller summary of the consultation paper shortly.  

The Central Bank's response to the Department of Finance Funds Sector 2030 Review

On 17 October 2023, the Central Bank published its response to the Department of Finance Funds Sector 2030 Review.

The Response

• Notes the Central Bank's support of the Review, with the aim of ensuring the investment funds sector's resilience objective of ensuring that the sector is resilient and that it delivers value for investors and for the Irish and European economies and
• Focuses on five key areas which the Central Bank considers to be critical to the future development of the sector in Ireland, namely:
  • Delivering Positive Outcomes for the Domestic Economy and Investors
  • Developing a Macro Prudential Framework for Investment Funds
  • Maintaining Regulatory Effectiveness
  • Sustainable Finance and
  • Digital Transformation.

The Central Bank updates its AIFMD Q&As]

On 01 November, 2023 the Central Bank published the 48th Edition of its AIFMD Q&A

A new Q&A ID 1156 sets out the circumstances in which the Central Bank can exempt an investment limited partnership (ILP) from the European Union (Qualifying Partnerships: Accounting and Auditing) Regulations 2019, pursuant to Section 15(1) of the ILPs Act 1994.

Meanwhile, the answer in Q&A ID 1084 has been extended to confirm that, where a Qualifying Investor AIF (QIAIF) lends to a co-investment vehicle in which the QIAIF has a majority interest, this will not be a breach of the prohibition on granting of loans to which all AIFs, other than loan originating QIAIFs, are subject so long as the lending is ancillary to the QIAIF's predominant investment strategy