The International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) published two reports relating to Money Market Funds.
- The Thematic Review on consistency in implementation of Money Market Funds reforms assesses the legislative and regulatory frameworks of the nine largest MMF domiciles in relation to the implementation of selected recommendations from the 2012 IOSCO Policy Recommendations on Money Market Funds. These recommendations had been elaborated in response to the stress observed during the global financial crisis in 2008 and were aimed at strengthening the resilience of MMFs globally. According to IOSCO, the participating jurisdictions (Brazil, China, France, India, Ireland, Japan, Luxembourg, UK and US which together represent approximatively 95% of the total net assets managed by MMFs worldwide) have generally implemented MMF reforms in line with the 2012 Recommendations.
- The Thematic Note on Money Market Funds during the March-April Episode examines across various jurisdictions COVID-19-related strains in the MMF sector that were observed in March/April 2020. Beyond analysing diverging developments across different MMF types, currencies and fund domiciles it also mentions areas which might merit further consideration for regulatory work.
EFAMA also published a report entitled 'European MMFs in the Covid-19 market turmoil: Evidence, experience and tentative considerations around eventual future reforms'. The report covers all three Money Market Fund categories. EFAMA is of the view that the report invalidates the notion that central bank interventions ‘bailed-out’ MMFs. Despite the severity of the liquidity stress in the secondary market for short-term instruments and the significant outflows experienced by European MMFs across all three of the MMFR-identified categories (public debt CNAV, LVNAV and VNAV), funds proved resilient. Notably, the ECB's Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP), announced on 18 March, only had a limited impact on European MMFs, due to the programme's strict eligibility requirements that excluded purchases of financial commercial paper (i.e. the large bulk of MMF asset holdings by definition), as well as assets denominated in non-Euro currencies.
