Central Bank of Ireland publishes Markets Update No 6 of 2026

On 7 May 2026, the Central Bank of Ireland (the Central Bank) published Issue No 6 2026 of its regular Market 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 one item:

Liquidity Management Tools – Central Bank Notice of Intention

On 7 May 2026, the Central Bank published a notice of intention concerning the application of the ESMA Guidelines on Liquidity Management Tools of UCITS and open-ended AIFs.

The Central Bank notes that it expects firms to comply fully with the Guidelines with immediate effect.

In CP161, the Central Bank of Ireland proposed a new provision in its UCITS Regulations and AIF Rulebook that, when selecting LMTs in accordance with the amended UCITS Directive and AIFMD, fund managers should consider selecting, from the relevant Annex in the UCITS Directive or AIFMD (as applicable):

• at least one quantitative-based liquidity management tool (i.e., redemption gates, extension of notice period or, redemption in kind) and
• at least one anti-dilution based liquidity management tool (i.e., redemption fees, swing pricing, dual pricing or, anti-dilution levy).

The Notice of Intention notes that the above requirement is subject to the derogation in

• Article 18a (2) of the UCITS Directive or
• Article 16 (2b) of the AIFMD

for UCITS and AIFs authorised as a money market fund (MMF) under the MMF Regulation.

Our summary of CP 161 and CP 162 (which was published in parallel) can be found here.