Asian Countries Sign Up to Fund Passport Scheme
05 July 2016
The Asia Region Funds Passport Memorandum officially came into effect on the 30th June 2016. Representatives from Australia, Japan, Korea, New Zealand and Thailand have signed the MoC and will have 18 months to implement the arrangements.
What is the Asian Region Passport Scheme?
The Asian Region Funds Passport is designed to provide a multilaterally agreed framework for facilitating cross-boarder marketing for managed funds in the APEC region. The scheme is not dissimilar to UCITS in the EU which facilitates cross border offerings of eligible collective investment schemes.
What does the Asian Region Passport Scheme aim to achieve?
The scheme was predominantly championed by the Australian Financial Centre Forum with the intention of helping develop Australia as a leading financial services centre. Click Here to read our Blog on the changing landscape in Australian investments and for more on the impact of the Asian Region Passport Scheme.
The passport intends to provide a region-wide, cross-boarder working platform to collaborate with finance policy makers, regulators, industry and technical experts and sets out internationally agreed rules and cooperation methods. It aims to enable growth and facilitate the flow of capital into the regions equity and debt markets.
The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) estimates that the introduction of this passport will create around 170,000 new jobs in the region over the next five years whilst annually saving Asian investors around $20 billion USD in investment management costs.
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