AIMA is helping its global members lighten the load of compliance, advocating for smarter regulation for the benefit of fund managers and their investors. 

Last week, AIMA hosted the world's top policymakers, regulators, and industry leaders in New York for its Global Policy and Regulatory Forum.

Now in its 25th year, this timely event took on the big regulatory and policy issues worldwide to help rule makers and takers better understand each other. 

Here’s a glimpse of what you missed.

Key themes addressed at the forum include:

1) The need to slow the pace and complexity of new regulation is a common refrain across the US, EU and UK, but it’s not a given that the work of individual regulatory authorities will live up to the political rhetoric. The implications for work in progress are also less clear.

2) Liquidity and leverage remain in the spotlight, although regulators recognise that there is no 'one-size-fits-all' approach and that the available supervisory tools need to be used sensitively. The potential value of system-wide stress testing will continue to be a focus globally.

3) The shape of the framework applicable to digital assets is becoming clearer, but regulating a market that is not defined by geographical borders is throwing up difficult challenges relating to extraterritoriality. This issue has plagued the wider global regulatory dialogue in the past decade. Even within the US, the respective roles and responsibilities of the SEC and CFTC have yet to be settled.

4) The impressive growth in private market strategies remains a key area of interest to policymakers globally. The conversation has become more nuanced, moving away from talk of asset managers encroaching on the role of banks to better understand the interdependencies of the banking and private credit sectors and the scope for more effective partnerships. The trend of insurers increasing their exposures to the private credit world is also noteworthy and could be accelerated if reforms to securitisation rules can deliver greater scope for credit transformation.

5) We are entering a very different era in terms of sustainability-focused regulation, with rolling back of disclosure obligations for asset managers. However, the extreme polarisation of views on sustainable finance between the EU and US will be challenging for firms to navigate.

6) Litigation has played an important role in checking the actions of regulators, notably the US SEC, and ensuring that its rulemaking respects its legislative mandate. Concern persists, however, that ongoing enforcement by the Agency could continue to create a precedent that unduly expands its authority.

7) Asset managers remain keenly interested in understanding how to access and operate in different markets. The event shone a light on some of the practicalities for US firms looking to expand their footprint globally.