Since March 2021 CTS has been busy preparing for the RG97 – Product Design and Distribution Obligations, which is new legislation impacting all CTS Funds with a PDS who are available to Retail investors.

Effective 5 October 2021, each registered scheme deemed to be in-scope must have a target market determination (TMD) in place and publicly available in order to legally issue their product. We have signed up to use the industry standard Financial Services Council (FSC) TMD template across all of our funds.

Our engagement approach with our investment management community follows three broad streams:

• Working Groups - with a small cohort of Investment Managers who are assisting us in creating and refining the process and guidance around HOW to populate TMDs.

• Webinars – for all in-scope investment managers and service providers where we share outcomes and actions from the working groups and insights, challenges and other perspectives on what the industry is facing while trying to meet these new obligations.

• Walk-in “Surgery” series (about to commence) – weekly sessions where all of our in-scope Investment Managers can come along and ask questions, seek guidance and be supported while they draft their TMDs and distribution conditions ready for go-live.

It’s fair to say engagement and collaboration have been the key words for this project so far!

We are very pleased to announce that we have recently appointed Zeidler Group as our successful vendor for the production and dissemination of TMDs.

This appointment continues to strengthen our relationship with Zeidler Group, who provide online due diligence and compliance attestation services for CTS.  They a have a strong track record in the UK with many years of experience with the very similar MiFID II regime, and provide a very competitive product.  

What is coming up next? 

Engagement sessions with Service Providers and Distributor Platforms to understand how they are planning on meeting DDO requirements and any changes if any that are required for them or us.

Commencement of the weekly walk-in surgery series of meetings.

Want to know more?

If you would like to know more about DDO and how it may impact one of your funds, please pop to our DDO webpage, where you will find the most up to date information, including links to our previous webinars and FAQs