Focus on the AMF’s control priorities for 2025

At the beginning of each year, during the presentation of her New Year’s wishes to the press, the President of the Financial Markets Authority (AMF) unveils the latter’s new priorities for action and supervision. On this occasion, the regulator also specifies the upcoming control priorities (both classic and thematic), which reflect certain areas of risk identified.

This announcement by the AMF is very anticipated by the entities under its supervision and aims to encourage them to examine their frameworks and practices more thoroughly, considering their current professional obligations.

The 2025 SPOT Controls Themes

For 2025, the AMF has announced 7 themes for its “SPOT” controls:

• 3 control campaigns concerning portfolio management companies,
• 3 control campaigns concerning investment service providers, and
• 1 control campaign concerning crowdfunding service providers. 

Asset Management

Organization and resources dedicated to the identification, the monitoring, and the management of operational risks

• Relevant entities: portfolio management companies
• Points of focus: procedural corpus, risk management process, reporting to managing instances and to the AMF, control framework and professional liability risk coverage methods for companies holding a full AIFM license.

Compliance and Internal Control Functions

• Relevant entities: portfolio management companies
• Points of focus: the positioning and representation of compliance and internal control functions in governance bodies, internal control procedural corpus, human and technical resources, escalation system in case of disagreement between the internal control and compliance officer and the operational staff, setting up and implementing compliance and internal control plans, the coordination between permanent and periodic control, the monitoring of recommendations and remediation requests issued by the internal control function, reporting to managing instances and to the AMF.

Telephone Recordings

• Relevant entities: portfolio management companies
• Points of focus: telephone recording procedures and systems during order execution processes and during client communications, employee training and awareness on the usage of telephony tools and applications, implementing permanent and periodic control systems. 

Marketing

Involvement of the compliance function in cross-functional processes related to employee conduct

• Relevant entities: investment service providers (ISP)
• Points of focus: distributor sales forces, remuneration practices, training actions.

Client communications from distributors of less liquid products Distributors of Less Liquid Products (SCPI, FEILT)

• Relevant entities: investment service providers (ISP)
• Points of focus: measures taken by distributors following the degradation of certain fundamental characteristics of less liquid products, impacts on regulatory and commercial documentation, providing clear and non-misleading information to non-professional clients.

Digital pathways offered to non-professional clients

• Relevant entities: investment service providers (ISP)
• Points of focus: methods for collecting information allowing distributors to establish relationships and complete the KYC questionnaire, potential gamification of the client relationship and of the services offered to clients.

Supervising crowdfunding service providers

• Relevant entities: crowdfunding service providers (CSP)
• Points of focus: first AMF control campaign targeting CSPs, which will particularly revisit themes under enhanced AMF supervision since 2023: governance, internal control framework, schemes for structuring offers, platform remuneration schemes, conflict of interest management, promotional communications, cross-border activities, etc.

Classic Control Themes

Aside from the SPOT controls, the AMF specified that in 2025 it would conduct, or could conduct, classic controls on:

• the cybersecurity of management companies providing investment services to retail clients to ensure the proper protection of client data and the quality of cybersecurity frameworks. The AMF will rely on audit service providers in the information systems security field certified by the ANSSI,
• valuation and liquidity management of funds managed by management companies in less liquid sectors (e.g., real estate, unlisted segment), especially during asset transfers between portfolios,
• the quality of investment service providers and market intermediaries’ market abuse prevention and detection frameworks, with a special focus on strengthening these frameworks to combat international insider networks. To this effect, the AMF intends to enhance operational cooperation with the national financial prosecutor’s office (PNF) and judicial authorities. New tools are also expected to be deployed to enhance the effectiveness of the AMF’s actions,
• the recording of electronic communications by intermediaries: implementing a process to ensure the surveillance of all means guaranteeing the traceability of provided investment services, such as transaction timelines,
• the supervision of the sales ecosystem (investment service providers, ISP agents),
• the collection, by ISPs, of the sustainability preferences of non-professional clients as part of discretionary management services, including information that is addressed to clients,
• the supervision of financial investment advisors (“CIF”) – specific risks related to online sales, due diligence performed by CIFs on the legal and economic characteristics of products, sales authorization (or lack thereof), identification and understanding of the target market, collecting information on clients’ knowledge and experience, their financial situation, and their objectives, regulatory and commercial information provided to clients, adequacy of provided advice to client profiles and motivation of adequacy in suitability statements, AML-CFT systems, and
• the supervision of professional associations of CIFs (membership processes, member training frameworks, the quality of conducted controls, following-up of control missions).

Nearly 60 controls will be conducted by the AMF’s Control Department teams in 2025, equally divided between “SPOT” and “classic” controls.

The AMF also emphasized that it did not rule out the possibility that recurring supervision themes, other than those mentioned, could be subject to enforcement actions in 2025 as part of its strategic “Impact 2027” orientations (for instance regarding management companies, sustainable finance, AML-CFT, and cybersecurity).

These announcements once again demonstrate the AMF’s commitment to being perceived as a demanding regulator.