Europe: The Central Bank of Ireland Continues to Focus on Financial Stability

By: Shane Geraghty, Michelle Lloyd, and Ruth Hennessy

The Central Bank of Ireland has announced this week that they will publish a feedback statement on their approach to macroprudential policy for investment funds, we expect in the coming months.

They issued a discussion paper on this topic late last year. The European Commission also released a targeted consultation on macroprudential policies for non-bank financial intermediaries on 22 May 2024.

The Central Bank’s announcement follows hot on the heels of its publication of a macroprudential policy framework for Irish-authorised GBP-denominated liability driven investment funds, as discussed here.

At the Central Bank’s recent Macroprudential Policy for Investment Funds Conference, the Governor of the Central Bank, Gabriel Makhlouf, indicated that a macroprudential framework for investment funds should not be a replication of the banking framework and should have:

• A well-articulated set of objectives and principles; and
• A framework tailored to the nature of the systemic risk from different fund cohorts – i.e. not a
  ‘one-size-fits-all approach’.

Governor Makhlouf noted that the objective is to ensure that this growing segment of the financial sector becomes more resilient and less likely to amplify adverse shocks.