On 12 April 2021, the Malta Financial Services Authority ("MFSA") issued a circular to collective investment schemes (locally licensed or notified) the requirement for all collective investment schemes to submit a new fund return ("Annual Fund Return").
The Annual Fund Return aims to capture salient information generally included in such audited financial statements as well as additional information in the form of a spreadsheet. The document will cover the same period as the annual report and audited financial statements of the funds. A single collective investment scheme will be required to submit one fund return on an annual basis covering all sub-funds of the respective scheme.
Applicability
The Annual Fund Return will become applicable for UCITS schemes with reference date 31 December 2020 onwards. The first deadline for the submission of the Annual Fund Return applicable to UCITS with an accounting reference date of 31 December 2020 is 31 August 2021. Following this, UCITS funds shall thereafter submit the Annual Fund Return within the same submission period as the audited financial statements.
Conversely, the Annual Fund Return will become applicable for AIFs, NAIFs and PIFs for reference date 31 December 2021 onwards, and is to be submitted to the MFSA together with the audited financial statements of the respective period.
Submission
The document is to be submitted through the MFSA's licence holder portal along with a scanned signed representation sheet which is found as an annex within the Annual Fund Return (signed by 2 directors) as well as a scanned signed auditor's report. These documents are to be submitted to the MFSA in original.
The MFSA has also prepared additional guidelines on the compilation of the Annual Fund Return applicable to collective investment schemes.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
