TISA (Tax Incentivised Savings Association) is a consumer focussed organisation whose aim is to increase the wellbeing of UK consumers. ATEB has been working with TISA in relation to PROD, or to give it it’s full title, Product Intervention and Product Governance. You will have seen numerous press articles in this respect recently, and firms need to know to what extent it affects them and how to implement a proportionate PROD regime.

Key to your understanding of PROD is the definition of distributors and manufacturers. Essentially, a distributor, as the name suggests, ‘distributes’ products (financial instruments) created by a third-party (a manufacturer) and as such are less affected by PROD. What is less understood is that if you create and manage your own risk-based portfolios by selecting funds in line with a defined asset allocation, you are a manufacturer (and quite likely also a distributor). You do not need to be a fund manager or the like therefore to be caught by PROD manufacturer rules and requirements.

Jeffrey Mushens, Technical Policy Director at TISA, has written the article below. It focusses on manufacturers and should help firms to understand the requirements, to check their compliance with the rules and to plan any necessary changes.

Design your own portfolios? Did you know you’re a product manufacturer?

The Product Intervention and Product Governance Sourcebook, or PROD, came into force on 3^rd January 2018 as part of the new MiFID II requirements.

PROD places new requirements on both ‘distributors’ and ‘manufacturers’ in relation to the systems and controls that firms must have in place for the design, approval, marketing and ongoing management of products throughout their lifecycle to ensure they meet legal and regulatory requirements.

Of interest for this article is the requirement that investment firms that manufacture financial instruments are required to comply with the product governance requirements for product manufacturers.

A firm is considered to manufacture when it “creates, develops, issues and/or designs financial instruments”.

TISA are aware that many financial advice firms ‘create’, ‘design’, ‘develop’ and ‘issue’ their own in-house portfolios, in an advisory capacity, to their clients. Under the PROD rules, such a firm is a manufacturer and therefore needs to comply with both the distributor and manufacturer rules.

The rules set out that product manufacturers must have in place:

• Joint manufacturing agreements with the fund managers whose financial instruments are included in your in-house portfolios – which sets out roles and responsibilities between the firms;
• An appropriately skilled and experienced committee which oversees the product governance and approvals process;
• Product design, approval and ongoing monitoring process;
• A clearly articulated target market for the portfolios including consideration of the appropriate distribution channels and the oversight of those distribution channels;
• Identification of any conflicts of interest and a plan for designing out these conflicts or, as a last resort, disclosing them to the client;
• A process for the identification and management of portfolio risks – including stress testing, scenario analysis, etc;
• Appropriate management information to ensure that the portfolio(s) remain compatible with the target market;
• A process for reporting sales and other information to other manufacturers, where required.

Jeffrey Mushens,

Technical Policy Director, TISA