KIID Resource Burden Eased by Launch of Combined KIID Generation Service by Simmons & Simmons and Morningstar

Major international law firm Simmons & Simmons entered into an agreement with Morningstar UK, a leading provider of independent investment research, to offer a comprehensive and automated online service to help European asset managers produce large numbers of key investor information documents (KIIDs) quickly and efficiently. Asset managers are rushing to comply with UCITS IV

Editorial Team
April 5, 2011
2 minutes

Tagged under:
BankingTech
InsurTech

Asset managers are rushing to comply with UCITS IV with many being required by distributors to produce a two-page KIID by 1 July this year. By July 2012, KIIDs will be mandatory for all UCITS.

The KIID generation service assists by capturing prescribed data and legal content with advanced end-to-end document collation and process management technology, built-in compliance awareness, alerts and rigorous risk reporting.

Commenting on the launch, Simmons & Simmons Financial Services partner Neil Simmonds, said: ‘‘The KIID is a legal document but it also includes important financial data. Many firms will need to produce thousands of KIIDs in multiple languages, which will be an onerous, expensive and time-consuming task. This combined KIIDS generation service will allow asset managers to produce compliant, translated KIIDs quickly, and in a cost efficient way. Our agreement with Morningstar is very exciting and enables us to offer at scale legal support on key areas of the document. Morningstar is providing the IT infrastructure and the financial data, including the important synthetic risk indicator (SRRI) and alerting engine.”

“Having Simmons & Simmons embed the Morningstar KIID Production Platform within its overall proposition is a smart way for our joint clients to achieve a one-stop solution for their KIID-related obligations,” said Geoff Balzano, CEO of Morningstar UK. “The Morningstar KIID Production Platform facilitates multiple client KIID templates, supports different fund types and languages, provides full production workflow and dashboards, and directly accesses the global Morningstar investment fund database along with our SRRI calculation and alerting tools. By working together, we can offer fund providers in the European market a cost-effective way of meeting their regulatory requirements and draw upon the respective strengths of both firms to deliver a full-service KIID solution.”

“KIID generation” is part of Simmons & Simmons’ navigator suite of products, which is a unique online service developed in response to client demand for reliable, user-friendly and cost-effective regulatory guidance. The subscription-only service, which currently covers 82 jurisdictions, brings much-needed clarity and cost control to a range of areas, including funds, securities, share disclosure, and short selling.