qualifying money market fund
- 1211(1) (in 3014 and BSOCS14) a collective investment undertaking28 authorised under the UCITS Directive or which is subject to supervision and, if applicable, authorised by an authority under the national law of the authorising Member State28, and which satisfies the following conditions:
- (a) its primary investment objective must be to maintain the net asset value of the undertaking either constant at par (net of earnings), or at the value of the investors' initial capital plus earnings;
- (b) it must, with a view to achieving that primary investment objective, invest exclusively in high quality money market instruments with a maturity or residual maturity of no more than 397 days, or regular yield adjustments consistent with such a maturity, and with a weighted average maturity of no more than1360 days. It may also achieve this objective by investing on an ancillary basis in deposits with credit institutions;
- (c) it must provide liquidity through same day or next day settlement.
- (2) For the purposes of (1)(b), a money market instrument may28 be considered to be of high quality if the AIFM or UCITS management company of the collective investment undertaking performs its own documented assessment of the credit quality of money market instruments that allows it to consider a money market instrument as high quality subject to the conditions below:28
- (a) where one or more credit rating agencies registered and supervised by ESMA have provided a rating of the instrument, the AIFM’s or UCITS management company's internal assessment must have regard to, inter alia, those credit ratings; and28
- (b) while there can be no mechanistic reliance on such external ratings, a downgrade below the two highest short-term credit ratings by any agency registered and supervised by ESMA that has rated the instrument will lead the AIFM or UCITS management company to undertake a new assessment of the credit quality of the money market instrument to ensure it continues to be of high quality.28
- (3) [deleted]28
- (4) (in COLL) a collective investment undertaking which is a UCITS scheme or authorised under the UCITS Directive or which is subject to supervision and, if applicable, authorised by either the FCA or an authority under the national law of the authorising Member State, and which satisfies the following conditions:30
- (a) its primary investment objective must be to maintain the net asset value of the undertaking either constant at par (net of earnings), or at the value of the investors’ initial capital plus earnings;30
- (b) it must, with a view to achieving that primary investment objective, invest exclusively in high quality money market instruments with a maturity or residual maturity of no more than 397 days, or regular yield adjustments consistent with such a maturity, and with a weighted average maturity of no more than 60 days. It may also achieve this objective by investing on an ancillary basis in deposits with credit institutions;30
- (c) it must provide liquidity through same day or next day settlement.30
- (i) where one or more credit rating agencies registered and supervised by the FCA or ESMA have provided a rating of the instrument, the AIFM’s or management company's internal assessment must have regard to, inter alia, those credit ratings; and30
- (ii) while there can be no mechanistic reliance on such external ratings, a downgrade below the two highest short-term credit ratings by any agency registered and supervised by the FCA or ESMA that has rated the instrument will lead the AIFM or UCITS management company to undertake a new assessment of the credit quality of the money market instrument to ensure it continues to be of high quality.30
- (5) (in CASS 7) a collective investment undertaking which is a UCITS scheme and, if applicable, authorised by the FCA, and which satisfies the following conditions:30
- (a) its primary investment objective must be to maintain the net asset value of the undertaking either constant at par (net of earnings), or at the value of the investors’ initial capital plus earnings;30
- (b) it must, with a view to achieving that primary investment objective, invest exclusively in high quality money market instruments with a maturity or residual maturity of no more than 397 days, or regular yield adjustments consistent with such a maturity, and with a weighted average maturity of no more than 60 days. It may also achieve this objective by investing on an ancillary basis in deposits with credit institutions;30
- (c) it must provide liquidity through same day or next day settlement.30
- (i) For the purposes of (b), a money market instrument may be considered to be of high quality if the AIFM or management company of the collective investment undertaking performs its own documented assessment of the credit quality of money market instruments that allows it to consider a money market instrument as high quality subject to the conditions below; and30
- (ii) while there can be no mechanistic reliance on such external ratings, a downgrade below the two highest short-term credit ratings by any agency registered and supervised by the FCA that has rated the instrument will lead the AIFM or management company to undertake a new assessment of the credit quality of the money market instrument to ensure it continues to be of high quality.30
[Note: article 1(4) of, and recital 4 to, the MiFID Delegated Directive]28