The authors of “Europe needs a Schengen for its securities sector” (Letters, December 15) are right. But they ignore one of the most successful financial sector directives, the directive on Ucits or Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities. Originally adopted in 1985 and revised in 2009, it sets rules for investment funds (Ucits) that allow them to be sold freely across the EU and EEA using a single authorisation, essentially creating a “passport” for these funds to operate cross-border, easily and efficiently.
Since 1985, the value of collective investment funds in Europe has grown from small beginnings in a series of fragmented national markets to €25tn in 2025, equivalent in size to the US mutual fund market. So successful has it been that its basic principles have been replicated in similar legislation in countries across the world.
I was fortunate enough to have been the UK representative on the European trade association of investment funds then called FEFSI (now Efama) at the time the directive was being drafted, and saw that integration had to be driven by industry participants not by politicians. Not only did the association provide advice to the European Commission in drafting, but made it clear that the European industry not only supported the idea of a borderless market but actually wanted it to happen. It was therefore in the words of the authors of the letter a “coalition of the willing”. Without following this model, integration of capital markets will not happen.
Mark St Giles
Cadogan Financial, Somerton, Somerset, UK